Vice News: “Kyle Rittenhouse loved cops, guns, President Trump, and ‘triggering the libs,’ according to some of his former classmates at Lakes Community High School in Lake County, Illinois. His clothes were often branded with pro-police slogans, and he carried a Blue Lives Matter phone case, one student said. Some of his classmates joked that he’d be a mass shooter one day. ‘I personally believe he went to Wisconsin with the intent to kill,’ said one former classmate, who asked not to be identified out of fear for their safety.”

“Students reached by VICE News described him as short-tempered and easily offended. ‘When he got mad or offended he would always say he could ‘fuck me up,’ but everyone would just laugh because he was like a 5-foot-4 chubby freshman boy who we thought wasn’t capable of harm,’ said Joe, who’s a minor and asked that his full name not be used. Rittenhouse spent a lot of time out of school — which his classmates attributed to his involvement with the Grayslake Police Department’s Public Safety Cadet Program, part of a youth program for aspiring cops in Lake County… Rittenhouse was also known as a ‘ride or die’ Trump supporter. ‘If you said anything bad about Trump, he’d threaten you,’ Joe said… ‘Kyle was the type of kid to wear a MAGA hat or other apparel just for attention, or to ‘trigger’ people,’ Joe added. Another one of Rittenhouse’s classmates said he used to refer to the school, located in a Chicago suburb, as ‘libtard af.'”