New York Mayor Bill de Blasio slammed the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, exhorting his followers, “We can’t let this go” even as the NYPD was on alert for potential protests.
The lefty mayor was only one of a host of New York’s liberal pols piling on to decry the jury’s decision.
“This verdict is disgusting and it sends a horrible message to this country. Where is the justice in this,” de Blasio tweeted after the 18-year-old defendant was cleared of all charges in the deaths of two men and the wounding of a third during racially charged violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020.
“We can’t let this go,” de Blasio added — as his Police Department was set to handle possible protests.
“We need stronger laws to stop violent extremism from within our own nation,” the mayor said. “Now is the time.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton seethed, “These continue to be dark days for black people killed at the hands of people that believe our lives do not matter.
“This verdict was not only outrageous and dangerous, it was also an obvious signal that encourages and notifies ‘vigilantes’ that they can continue to use violence to assert their power, and more importantly that they are above the criminal justice system when they do,” said Sharpton, head of the National Action Network.
Rittenhouse, who is white, was captured on video shooting two white Black Lives Matter activists during the melee.
He also shot and injured a third white man in the skirmish in Kenosha, a town that became the scene of a violent days-long showdown between left and right-wing activists who flocked there after a racially charged police shooting that made national headlines.
His lawyers argued that he fired in self-defense, while prosecutors tried to paint Rittenhouse as an out-of-control vigilante.
New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — who is currently the Big Apple’s only black citywide official — expressed his outrage over the verdict clearing Rittenhouse in the case.
“A white seventeen year old killing protesters with a weapon of war is celebrated and acquitted,” Williams said.
“A black seventeen year old walking the community with a bag of Skittles is criminalized and murdered,” he added, an apparent reference to Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teen who was shot dead by George Zimmerman while walking in a Florida neighborhood in 2012.
Gov. Kathy Hochul tweeted, “Kyle Rittenhouse used an assault weapon to kill two people.
“This is not justice,” she wrote. “If there was any question about why we need strong gun safety laws, this is your answer. This should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. We have a lot of work to do.”
Even disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo publicly weighed in.
“Today’s verdict is a stain on the soul of America, & sends a dangerous message about who & what values our justice system was designed to protect,” tweeted the accused serial sex harasser. “We must stand unified in rejecting supremacist vigilantism & with one voice say: this is not who we are.”
Patrick Gaspard, a former ambassador to South Africa, former close adviser to de Blasio and the former head of the Open Society Foundation, added in a tweet, “I’m sick to my stomach right now.
“But I’m not shocked. We know what we know. We live this every day,” he said.
“We are killed while unarmed and innocent. If Kyle Rittenhouse looked like me, there wouldn’t have even been a trial. The whole world knows this about our country. Again and again.”
-Additional reporting by Larry Celona and Joe Marino
