A teenager faces charges in shootings that left 2 people dead in Kenosha, WI. The @nytimes Visual Investigations team reviewed hours of livestreams to track 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse’s movements during and leading up to the shootings. [THREAD] nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/…
In the hours before the shooting incident, @KristanTHarris, @RichieMcGinniss and @ElijahSchaffer all interviewed Rittenhouse, who said he was protecting a local vehicle dealership together with several other armed men. He also offers medical assistance to protesters.
Rittenhouse is around that area in most of the footage we reviewed. About 15 minutes before the first shooting, police drive past Rittenhouse, and thank the group he’s with. “We appreciate you guys, we really do,” they broadcast through the speakers of their armored vehicles.
Rittenhouse walks up to a police vehicle with his rifle slung and talks with officers. One tosses a water bottle to the armed men, as seen in @KristanTHarris's livestream.
Rittenhouse eventually leaves the dealership (google.com/maps/place/42%…) and is barred by the police from returning, as seen @Ruptly footage, six minutes before the shooting: . 
To better understand what happened next, we synchronized 6 livestreams, which revealed that there were two separate shooting incidents, about one and a half minutes apart, involving multiple gunmen.
At 23:19, Rittenhouse is seen in this YouTube livestream. He's being chased into a parking lot. While he is being pursued, an unknown gunman fires the first shot into the air.
Rittenhouse turns toward the sound of the gunfire as another pursuer lunges toward him. He then fires four times with his assault rifle, and appears to shoot the man in the head.
The muzzle flash of the first shot by the unknown gunman and the smoke rising from the handgun can be seen in this video capturing the first shooting from a different angle.
It’s unclear why Rittenhouse was being chased or why he was in the area of this car dealership about four blocks away from the one he claimed to be protecting. We do know vehicles in this lot were damaged minutes before the first shooting.
The initial shot and Rittenhouse’s four subsequent discharges of his AR-15-style weapon are followed by three more shots in the parking lot — we don’t know who fired them. Rittenhouse seems to make a phone call and then flees the scene.
While fleeing from the scene, Rittenhouse is again chased by several people. He trips and falls to the ground and fires four shots as three people rush him. One person appears to be hit in the chest, while another, who is carrying a handgun, is hit in the arm.
At the same time, we hear at least 8 gunshots from farther away. Mr. Rittenhouse gets up and begins walking north from the scene, and 8 more gunshots are heard from closer range. It’s unclear who fired the other gunshots.
Police vehicles just one block away remain stationary during the gunfire. Rittenhouse walks with his hands up toward the police, as bystanders call out that he was involved in the shooting. The police drive by him to the scene of the shootings, without stopping.
Rittenhouse’s social media profiles proclaim support for pro-police causes like the Blue Lives Matter movement and Humanize the Badge. Other posts show him taking backyard target practice, posing with guns and assembling an military-style semi-automatic rifle.
We’re continuing to investigate this incident and what happened Tuesday night, so please do reach out if you have more information. Thanks to everyone who has been following so closely and sharing information with us.
And big thanks to the team: @heytherehaIey, @muyixiao, @ckoettl, @_stella_cooper, @bottidavid, @johnismay, @tiefenthaeler, @whitney_hurst, @markscheffler, @juliebosman, @katiegnelson, @robinnyc7 & @evanchill. You can read the full piece here: nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/…
Correction: this should be 23:49 local time. Second shooting happened about one and a half minutes later, at 23:51.
Another one, this is an AR-15-style rifle, *not* an assault rifle. It’s important not to conflate (but I did drafting and posting this tweet):
Leer nuestra investigación visual en español aquí 👇 nytimes.com/es/2020/08/27/…
When tweeting the thread above, it was still unclear why Rittenhouse was being chased by several people prior to the first shooting. In the following tweets, some details with what we’ve learned in the past days about what happened in the 10 minutes leading up to the shootings.
It’s 11:39 p.m. when Rittenhouse and another armed civilian leave the car dealership they claim to be protecting to offer medical aid to protesters, they tell @RichieMcGinniss: . This is 10 minutes before the shooting.
A Ruptly livestream captures the three men walking past the police vehicles to the opposite side of the gas station. About half an hour earlier, an argument between protesters, some armed, and the heavily armed group Rittenhouse was with, broke out.
At 11:41 p.m., it seems quieter at the gas station. “Does anybody need medical?” Rittenhouse is heard shouting. But his presence upsets some bystanders who claim he had pointed a gun at them earlier, footage shows: . Rittenhouse then walks out of screen.
Two minutes later, at 11:43 p.m., Rittenstein is captured on camera again. He wants to go back to the car dealership he says he’s protecting, but is barred by police from returning, as seen in @Ruptly footage: .
At about 11:46 p.m., @KoerriElijah captures Rittenhouse running by the gas station with a fire extinguisher in the direction of a different car dealership (facebook.com/watch/live/?v=…, timecode 0:55:22), where vehicles are being damaged and set on fire.
Footage from livestreams indeed confirms that multiple cars were being damaged at that second car dealership, and at least one was set on fire, at around at 11:45 p.m.
As Rittenstein walks towards the second car dealership, @KoerriElijah’s video shows he walks by a trash bin that’s likely being set on fire. Joseph Rosenbaum, who would later be the first victim shot by Rittenhouse, is seen there with a small group. facebook.com/watch/live/?v=…
But Rittenhouse doesn’t appear to stop at the trash bin fire. It’s only 30 seconds before the shooting that we see that Rosenbaum chases Rittenhouse with several other people, for unknown reasons. This is visible on both @KoerriElijah and Regg Inkagnedo’s livestreams.
