A man seen carrying an AR-15 rifle outside the courthouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where a jury is deliberating on the double homicide trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, identified himself as a former police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.
The man, Jesse Kline, confirmed a report in the Chicago Tribune Thursday that he told the crowd he was a former officer in the Missouri city that was rocked by weeks of protests after the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown.
In a brief interview with NBC News, Kline said he’d traveled to Kenosha from Arizona, where he now lives, to “exercise my constitutional rights.”
The Ferguson Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kline confirmed he was seen outside the Kenosha courthouse denouncing Black Lives Matter and calling the movement a “terrorist organization.” Photos also captured him holding what appeared to be a sex toy.
The Tribune reported that he arrived at the courthouse in a Maserati with his rifle wearing a tactical vest, button-down shirt, bow tie, slacks and dress shoes. Wisconsin is an open carry state.
He returned to the courthouse Thursday with “a long, narrow tote bag that was similar in appearance to a rifle case,” according to the Tribune.
The man initially called himself “Maserati Mike” but later identified himself as Kline.
After sheriff’s deputies told Kline he couldn’t have the firearm because state law prohibits people from carrying guns within 1,000 feet of a school, the incident was resolved without further action, the Tribune reported.
Kline began working with the Ferguson Police Department in 2015 and was fired three years later for allegedly following an ex-girlfriend to another man’s home and poking the man’s chest with the barrel of his gun, NBC affiliate KSDK of St. Louis reported.
Stalking and assault charges were later dropped because the ex-girlfriend and a witness refused to cooperate with authorities and failed to appear for court hearings, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Asked Thursday about the dismissed allegations, Kline said in a text message that “sometimes people lie to the police and charges get dropped.”
He ended the message with a smiley face emoji.
Kline declined to try to get his job back because he “humbly moved on to better opportunities,” he said in a text message.
He said he was now an investor, though he declined to provide additional details and hung up on a reporter.
Moments later, he called back and said: “I wanted to let you know I’m government-funded and sometimes I glow in the dark.”
Then Kline hung up again.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
