KENOSHA, Wis. — An online store has stopped selling merchandise supporting an Illinois teen who killed two people and wounded a third during a Wisconsin protest.
Prosecutors have charged 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse with multiple counts in the August shootings in Kenosha. Rittenhouse maintains he fired in self-defense and some conservatives have praised him.
The Kenosha News reports that his family started selling “Free Kyle” merchandise through Printify last week, saying the money would go toward his legal defense.
Printify tweeted that it has terminated the Rittenhouse family’s account because it violates a policy banning content that promotes or condones violence.
“We have chosen to discontinue our business relationship with this store in order to mitigate business risk,” the company said in a statement. “Ultimately, we don’t want to be affiliated with a store that’s involved in such a complex, controversial and ongoing case.”
Kimberley Motley, an attorney for one of the men Rittenhouse shot called the merchandise “disgusting.”
According to FreeKyleUSA social media, which the Rittenhouse family operates, the family is trying to secure another company to handle merchandising. They criticized Printify’s decision to drop them as “a powerful, concerted effort solely focused on preventing the truth from getting out.”
