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Had Kyle Rittenhouse been protecting his grandparents’ gas station before fatally shooting two people during a violent protest in Wisconsin, it would have been a key part of his claim of self-defense. Rittenhouse was acquitted in the shooting. But there is no evidence to back a widely shared claim on Facebook that the gas station where it all started and where Kyle stayed up until they started attacking him is owned by his grandparents. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Rittenhouse , then 17, went from his home in Illinois to Kenosha, Wis., in response to protests that erupted after a white Kenosha police officer shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, during an Aug. 23, 2020, arrest. On a self-described mission to protect property, Rittenhouse was at the protests on Aug. 25, 2020, armed with an AR-15 rifle, when he shot three people, two fatally. Rittenhouse was charged with five felonies, including reckless homicide and reckless endangerment, and pleaded not guilty on grounds of self-defense. On Nov. 19, 2021, a jury acquitted him on all charges. During his testimony at his trial, Rittenhouse said that his grandmother is among family members who live in Kenosha. There was no mention of his grandparents owning a gas station in Kenosha. In describing his actions on the night of the shooting, Rittenhouse testified that at one point, he was at the Ultimate gas station. He said that as he walked from Ultimate to go to a car lot to put out fires, he was ambushed, and then fired shots. Ultimate is owned by a Kenosha man , Maher Bassam Shahin, according to State of Wisconsin business records. There is no evidence that Rittenhouse’s grandparents owned the station. He had left the station before the shootings occurred. We rate the post False.
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