Actor Ricky Schroder is defending himself against critics who said he should not have helped bail 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse out of jail for the shooting deaths of two protesters in Kenosha, Wisc., earlier this year.
Schroder told the New York Post on Tuesday he was "infuriated" when he saw Rittenhouse being vilified in the press.
Schroder, who has been an NRA member for 30 years, says he has put "hundreds of thousands" of dollars into Rittenhouse's legal defense. Schroder, along with My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell and others, paid Rittenhouse's $2 million bail.
Rittenhouse went to Kenosha, he said, to help defend businesses from "rioters" during protests that turned violent following the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by police. Blake was shot multiple times in the back, and though he survived the shooting, doctors have said he may never walk again.
Rittenhouse has pleaded self-defense, saying he only fired his weapon after protesters attacked him. He wounded a third protester.
"It made me mad," Schroder said. "This boy is innocent and he will be proven innocent. I did what any father should’ve done, and that's get a kid out of jail that doesn't deserve to be there.
He wasn’t there to stop the protests," Schroder added. "He was there to defend property from chaos."
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