Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all the charges against him in his homicide trial on Friday.- In an interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson, he said he wasn't a racist and supported
BLM .
Kyle Rittenhouse said he isn't a racist and that he supports the Black Lives Matter movement in a sneak peek of his interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson.
"This case has nothing to do with race. It never had anything to do with race. It had to do with the right to self-defense," Rittenhouse said. "I'm not a racist person. I support the BLM movement. I support peacefully demonstrating."
Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all five charges brought against him on Friday. He was on trial for fatally shooting Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and injuring Gaige Grosskreutz on August 25, 2020, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during civil unrest that erupted after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man.
Rittenhouse previously said he was at the protests to help protect a local business. He and his attorneys said he was acting in self-defense. He told Carlson he was fearful during the events that led up to the shooting.
"I tell everybody there what happened," he said. "I said I had to do it. I was just attacked. I was dizzy. I was vomiting. I couldn't breathe."
His acquittal has received a polarized response, with some conservatives praising the verdict and progressives denouncing it.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Rittenhouse's attorney Mark Richards said his client "wishes he didn't have to do it."
"Kyle said: 'If I had to do it all over again and I had any idea something like this would happen. I wouldn't do it,'" Richards said.
Richards also said he disapproved of the Fox News film crew that was embedded with the defense. "I did not approve of that. I threw them out of the room several times," he told CNN's Chris Cuomo.
"I don't think a film crew is appropriate for something like this but the people who were raising the money to pay for the experts and to pay for the attorneys were trying to raise money and that was part of it so I think, I don't want to say an evil but a definite distraction was part of it," he added. "I didn't approve of it but I'm not always the boss."
Rittenhouse's full interview with Carlson is expected to air on Monday and a documentary on the case is slated to debut next month.