Judge Bruce Schroeder, who is presiding over the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, has banned MSNBC from the Kenosha County Courthouse because police caught a producer trying to follow the jury bus.
Cops stopped James J. Morrison, who said he is a producer for NBC, after he ran a red light trying to keep up with the bus.
The ham-handed move, ordered by a producer in New York, Morrison claimed, was a clear attempt to identify — and possibly intimidate — the jury.
Network Booted
Schroeder has been a fair judge, and one willing to crack down on prosecutorial shenanigans.
In this case, he put the wood to the leftist network, whose commentators called Rittenhouse a “vigilante” and “domestic terrorist” guitly of murder from the moment he defended himself against the four thugs who attacked him during the Blake riots last year. MSNBC stopped covering the trial during the closing argument from Rittenhouse’s attorneys.
“The jury in this case is being transported from a different location in a bus with windows covered so that they aren’t exposed to anything on one side or the other,” Schroeder explained. “That’s been done every day.”
The reason, of course, is to protect the identities of jurors so leftist goons can’t threaten or attack them.
Morrison told cops he was “under the supervision of someone named Irene Byon in New York,” Schroeder said. A web search reveals that Byon is indeed an NBC producer.
“He was following at a distance of about a block,” Schroeder continued, when cops pulled him over for running a red light. Morrison told them Byon ordered him to follow the bus.
“I have instructed that no one from MSNBC news will be permitted in this building for the duration of this trial,” Schroeder continued:
This is a very serious matter and I don’t know what the ultimate truth of it is, but absolutely, it would go without much thinking that someone who is following a jury bus, that is a very, extremely serious matter, and will be referred to the proper authorities for further action.
NBC News, of course, reported that the whole affair is just a misunderstanding. Morrison just happened to run a red light a block behind the bus.
“Last night, a freelancer received a traffic citation,” the network risibly claimed:
While the traffic violation took place near the jury van, the freelancer never contacted or intended to contact the jurors during deliberations, and never photographed or intended to photograph them. We regret the incident and will fully cooperate with the authorities on any investigation.
Unfortunately for NBC, that isn’t what Morrison told the cops, who said he was “trying to photograph jurors.”
Again, Morrison said Byon told him to chase the bus. He had no reason to confess that if it weren’t true.
Jurors Terrified?
This isn’t the first time Schroeder has wrangled with the leftist media. He has also criticized it for sloppy reporting. He called it “frightening,” and said the reportage has made him reconsider the wisdom of live television cameras in the courtroom.
One question now is whether Schroeder will be forced to declare a mistrial given everything that has happened. The prosecutorial conduct is bad enough.
But now, as The New American reported earlier today, cops have arrested violent hate-Rittenhouse protesters outside the courthouse, just feet away from where jurors are meeting to convict or acquit the 18-year-old.
Threats of murder, rioting, arson, and other violence are on Twitter, including threats against the judge, who has been called a racist because he has not permitted the prosecution to run roughshod over Rittenhouse’s constitutional right to a fair trial.
Now this: A freelance producer for a major news network told cops his supervisor ordered him to follow jurors.
That had just one purpose: to identify them, reveal their identities, and terrify them into convicting Rittenhouse.
H/T: Fox News
