Kyle Rittenhouse’s self-imposed exile from social media is over, and he appears to have a new crusade. Over the weekend Rittenhouse posted a video outside the Walton County, Florida Sheriff’s Office to defend a man named Michael Rediker, who’s been charged in the murder of 41-year-old Brandon Thomas Keene.
Michael Rediker was violently attacked and forced to defend himself against 3 violent attackers. Michael used Florida’s stand your ground law to lawfully defend himself when his life was put in jeopardy. Now Walton County is trying to make an example out of him. Thank you for… pic.twitter.com/9MZ8suPrEH
— Kyle Rittenhouse (@rittenhouse2a) December 12, 2025
Presumably Rittenhouse wouldn’t have staked that position without some evidence to back up his claims, but the evidence against Rediker, or at least the narrative contained in the arrest affidavit, seems pretty strong to me.
It also doesn’t help that Florida attorney (and politician) Anthony Sabatini, who is representing Rediker, was defending the murder suspect on social media through a very selective reading of the affidavit.
The entire arrest warrant below is available to the public per Florida Sunshine Law. It CLEARLY states the DEFENDANT made physical contact first by SHOVING the victim’s wife.
WHAT HAPPENED TO “BEING ATTACKED BY THREE PEOPLE” @rittenhouse2a and @AnthonySabatini? Right, he… pic.twitter.com/wZQpABQxfp
— Walton County Sheriff’s Office, Florida (@WCSOFL) December 13, 2025
According to the affidavit, Rediker drove his tractor onto Keene’s property and dumped asphalt into a hole that Keene had just dug out using an excavator. When Keene stepped down from the heavy equipment Rediker was in a verbal argument with Keene’s wife, and argument that escalated when Rediker allegedly shoved her into the front-end loader on his tractor. When Keene attempted to step in between the two he “made contact with” Rediker, which is when he allegedly drew his firearm and shot Keene in the face.
The affidavit accuses Rediker of threatening to kill Keene’s wife and two other witnesses before he got back on his tractor and drove away.
Based on the information contained in the affidavit, Rediker doesn’t have any grounds to raise a Stand Your Ground defense. The state’s justifiable use of force statute declares:
A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using or threatening to use defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:
a) The person against whom the defensive force was used or threatened was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or if that person had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person’s will from the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle; and
(b) The person who uses or threatens to use defensive force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred.
The statute also contains a number of provisions that disqualify a presumption of reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm, including if “the person against whom the defensive force is used or threatened has the right to be in or is a lawful resident of the dwelling, residence, or vehicle, such as an owner, lessee, or titleholder, and there is not an injunction for protection from domestic violence or a written pretrial supervision order of no contact against that person.”
If Keene really was on his own property when he was shot, Redicker has lost the presumption that he was acting in reasonable fear. Another exclusion to the presumption states that if the “person who uses or threatens to use defensive force is engaged in a criminal activity or is using the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle to further a criminal activity,” they are also not presumed to have acted in reasonable fear of death or great bodily injury. According to the sheriff’s department, Rediker had already assaulted Keene’s wife when Keene tried to step between the two of them, which makes Rediker the initial aggressor.
Walton County Sheriff Michael Adkinson blasted Rittenhouse and Sabatini in the press after the pair’s defense of Rediker, stating that while he doesnt often comment on open cases, he felt compelled to respond to the “wildly irresponsible” claims they made.
“After 30-something years of doing this, I very rarely get personally offended, but I’m actually just kind of disgusted with them,” the sheriff continued. “There was a man who lost his life yesterday. A father, a husband with two small children, who was murdered, unarmed on his own property, unprovoked by an individual who drove a tractor over a half a mile onto the victim’s property. Once there, batters his wife in front of eyewitnesses. When the husband, whom there had been no confrontation with, gets out to come over and help pick his wife up off the ground the suspect shoots him in the face. He was unarmed. There was no fight between them. There was no attack, and as he is laying dying on the ground, this suspect, Michael Rediker, stood over him and made some comments for which he is going to answer to in court. At the same time, he committed aggravated assault on multiple other people because he murdered this man in front of witnesses that watched this as this man was murdered. Again, unarmed, on his own property, after his wife had been battered, and no confrontation.
“Now, somehow out of that, Mr. Rittenhouse and his attorney, Anthony Sabatini, have determined that this is the great Stand Your Ground case,” Adkinson continued. “Well, I’ll tell you this. I’ll bet my badge on this. Not only is that not a stand your ground, Mr. Rediker will face either the ultimate penalty in the state of Florida or God willing the rest of his natural life in prison. Because, come Christmas morning in two weeks, there are two little boys elementary school age, two children, that are not going to have their father, and there’s a wife whose not going to have her husband all so these two idiots can get more likes on their Facebook and call it a Constitutional issue.”
Sabatini is arguably trying to represent his client the best he can, but that doesn’t explain Rittenhouse’s involvement in the defense. Neither do the cryptic statements by Sabatini and Rittenhouse about waiting for all of the facts to come out. There’s nothing stopping either of the two from providing those alleged details now, especially after being called out by the sheriff and a lot of Second Amendment supporters on social media.
True… IF you:
1️⃣Are not the aggressor.
2️⃣Are lawfully present.
3️⃣Have a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily harm.
4️⃣Are not engaged in criminal activity.Based on the complaint and multiple eyewitness, Rediker is 0/4.
Terrible case to stake a reputation on. https://t.co/DfrTbCCpeS— Rob Doar (@robdoar) December 13, 2025
Doar’s absolutely right. As I said, Sabatini’s comments are understandable (even if they’re not convincing) because he’s getting paid to defend Rediker. Unless Kyle Rittenhouse is getting paid as well, his stalwart defense of Rediker is really strange.
As it happens, Rittenhouse has set up a campaign on GiveSendGo called “Free Michael Rediker.” The campaign, though, never does say where the money that’s raised will be spent. Presumably it will go towards Rediker’s legal fees, since he’s currently being held without the option for bail, but that doesn’t mean the money has to go there. In a sign of how well-received Rittehouse’s comments have been, the campaign has raised a whopping $782 of its $100,000 goal as of mid-afternoon on Monday.
I keep hoping that Kyle Rittenhouse will decide he doesn’t want to be a one-dimensional figure known only for shooting people in self-defense, mostly for his sake. I have to admit though, I don’t think he’s a great advocate for the right to keep and bear arms. I don’t care that he’s a polarizing figure. I just don’t think he really brings anything to the table other than his own personal story. And frankly, the relevance of that story fades every time he uses it to make a buck.
I guess we’ll have to wait for a court hearing to learn what compelling evidence Rittenhouse and Sabatini are sitting on regarding Rediker’s claim of self-defense. Maybe we’ll all be wowed, but If I were in Kyle Rittenhouse’s shoes I’d be distancing myself from this case as fast as I could… and going back into my self-imposed social media exile too.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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