A public meeting in Kenosha, Wis., descended into chaos Monday night as one resident accused the parks commission of quietly trying to approve a proposal to memorialize one of the two men killed by Kyle Rittenhouse in 2020.
The commission ultimately tabled the proposal after multiple residents showed opposing the placement of a memorial tree and plaque commemorating Anthony Huber at Anderson Park.
Huber was captured on video chasing Rittenhouse and attempting to hit him with a skateboard before Rittenhouse fatally shot him in the chest during protests on Aug. 25, 2020.
The proposal was requested earlier this month by Huber’s girlfriend Hannah Gittings, according to the commission’s agenda, and it flew under the public’s radar until Kevin Mathewson, a former Kenosha alderman and current investigative journalist, published an article about the issue on his website.
Mathewson attended Monday’s meeting and engaged in a testy exchange with the commission, whom he accused of breaking the law, prompting Alderman Eric Haugaard to repeatedly slam his gavel.
“I know you don’t want to hear it, and you want to slam the gavel like a lunatic,” Mathewson told Haugaard. “Doesn’t change what you did was wrong.”
Matthewson told Fox News that he believes the commission would have quietly approved the proposal if the public had not spoken up.
“They have all spoken publicly against Kyle Rittenhouse,” Mathewson claimed of the members of the commission. “They think that he shouldn’t have been out there, and it was terrible that he shot these poor innocent people who are just protesting police brutality.”
The video shows Huber chasing Rittenhouse and attempting to hit him before Rittenhouse fatally shot him.
Youtube/ The Truth
Hannah Gittings submitted the proposal to have the memorial for her boyfriend.
Stephen Yang
“I think those five members want the tree and the plaque to go up, but they don’t want the ramifications from the voters,” he told the news outlet.
Matthewson made headlines in 2020 for starting an organization called the Kenosha Guard — an armed group created to “deter rioting/looting,” according to a Facebook post.
On the day Rittenhouse shot three people, Mathewson urged members to defend the city by taking to the streets with guns, according to The New York Times.
* story by The New York Post