Mr. Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges in the fatal shootings of two men and wounding of another during a protest in 2020 that was precipitated by the shooting of a Black man by a police officer.
The semiautomatic rifle used by Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager acquitted of criminal charges in the fatal shooting of two men and the wounding of another during a street protest in Kenosha, Wis., in 2020, will be destroyed under an agreement approved by a judge on Friday. Mr. Rittenhouse,19, had consented to the agreement’s terms before a hearing in Kenosha County Circuit Court, according to his lawyer, but did not attend the hourlong proceeding. A spokesman for Mr. Rittenhouse had previously said that he did not want the AR-15-style rifle to become a political symbol or trophy. The rifle, a Smith & Wesson M&P 15, will be turned over to the Kenosha Police Department and taken to a state crime lab to be destroyed, along with the rifle’s magazine and scope, a prosecutor said on Friday. The prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger of Kenosha County, said that the process would most likely be completed in late April. “It will not be in anyone’s possession,” Mr. Binger said. Mark Richards, Mr. Rittenhouse’s lawyer, filed a motion earlier this month seeking for the rifle, its ammunition and a mask worn by his client on the night of the shootings to be returned to Mr. Rittenhouse. “I’ve discussed this with my client, and it meets his goals,” Mr. Richards said of the agreement, noting that Mr. Rittenhouse’s other possessions had been returned to him.
