The Rittenhouse Effect: Charges dropped against security guard accused of killing pseudo-patriot; Will a Proud Boy’s alleged shooter be next?

After Kyle Rittenhouse, we should have seen this coming and in fact insisted upon it. We still need to for Ben Varela who is accused of shooting Tiny Toese in Washington State.

DENVER, CO – The District Attorney’s office plans to drop second degree murder charges against Matthew Dolloff, the security guard who was accused of shooting and killing militia member Lee Keltner as he attacked Dolloff as he was protecting a journalist for a local news outlet during a so-called “Patriot Muster” that was greeted with an antifascist counter protest. With the DA’s office citing self defense, the dismissal will come just over four months after the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse who shot and killed three persons during a rally in Kenosha, Wisconsin while he was with right wing militia groups.

“In line with our ethical obligations, we cannot overcome the legal justifications of self-defense or defense of others. We are not able to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the District Attorney’s office said.

Dolloff was working for 9News in Denver as a security guard protecting their journalist covering the “Patriot Muster” outside the Denver Art Museum organized by onetime Blackwater Security employee John “Tig” Tiegen and a counterprotest called “BLM-Antifa Soup Drive”. Videos show Keltner, who was wearing an anti-Black Lives Matter shirt at the time, getting into arguments with others before turning to Dolloff, punching and pepper spraying him before being shot. Keltner died at the hospital an hour later.

Conservative writers and media outlets immediately attempted to paint the shooting as an attack by anti fascists and Dolloff as antifa, even though Denver police said there Doloff had no such affiliation.

In the wake of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, there concern had grown that others would not be even-handed in other cases, especially when it concerns leftists protecting themselves against right-wing aggression. Last month however, Benjamin Smith, who curiously was a fan of neo-fascist propagandist Andy Ngo, who initially attempted to demonize Dolloff, allegedly shot at several participants of a rally for Amir Locke, a 22-year-old Black man killed Feb. 2 by Minneapolis police, and Patrick Kimmons, a Black man slain in 2018 by Portland police. Brandy “June” Knightly, 60 was killed and four others were wounded before Smith was himself shot. He currently is in a hospital facing charges of second-degree murder, four counts of second-degree attempted murder, two counts of first-degree assault with a firearm and two counts of second-degree assault with a firearm. No charges were filed against the rally participant that shot him.

In September, Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, a particularly violent member of the Proud Boy who is currently in jail awaiting trial on charges of assault after a rally in August where he and other Proud Boys overturned a van, was shot and wounded as he reportedly attempted to pursue a group of antifascists leaving a rally in Olympia, Washington, a similar situation as the Kyle Rittenhouse shooting. Benjamin Anthony Varela, 36, of Olympia, was arrested days later and charged with first-degree assault while armed with a deadly weapon.

Denver District Attorney Beth McCann plans to dismiss the charges against Dolloff at the pre-trial conference scheduled for March 21, according to the security guard Matthew Dolloff’s attorney Doug Richards.