Kyle Rittenhouse Says His Stimulus Check Bought The AR-15 Used In Shooting

In a new interview from jail, Rittenhouse claims the gun he used to kill two men was purchased with his stimulus check

Kyle Rittenhouse has revealed that he used his government stimulus check to purchase the gun used to kill two men during the Kenosha, Wisconsin riots over the summer. In a new interview with The Washington Post, the 17-year-old claims that he cashed in his coronavirus relief funds and handed them over to a friend to purchased the weapon he would use to shoot three people during the Jacob Blake protests — and he has absolutely no regrets.

According to the killer, he worked as a lifeguard at the YMCA but had been furloughed due to the pandemic.

“I got my $1,200 from the coronavirus Illinois unemployment because I was on furlough from YMCA, and I got my first unemployment check, so I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll use this to buy it,'” Rittenhouse claimed. While he wasn’t old enough to purchase the AR-15 that he would use to kill Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and injure another, authorities maintain he had a friend in Kenosha make the purchase for him and keep it for him in Wisconsin until he could cross the border from his home 20 miles away and retrieve it.

Rittenhouse claims he was out in the streets on Aug. 25 to help protect local businesses and provide medical aid. Photos taken from that time depict him with the AR-15 slung over his shoulder and a medic’s bag on his hip. During his telephone interview from jail, he told the Post that he acted in self-defense and had every right to be armed during the protests that occurred following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

“No, I don’t regret it,” he said. “I would have died that night if I didn’t. I feel like I had to protect myself.”

“I was going into a place where people had guns, and God forbid somebody brought a gun to me and decided to shoot me. … I wanted to be protected, which I ended up having to protect myself,” he added.

It isn’t clear how or why Rittenhouse received a stimulus check, seeing as though he was a minor living with his parents. Per CNET, “To qualify for your own stimulus check, you needed to have filed your 2019 taxes independently, which means no one else claimed you on their taxes as a dependent.”

“People aged 17 through 24 were excluded from the CARES Act because the bill was based on a tax code definition of ‘child’ that states a ‘qualifying child … has not attained age 17.’ That means even 17- or 18-year-old high school students who clearly lived with a parent or guardian were excluded as dependents and weren’t counted for a $500 addition to the family check,” they continued.