I guess the 39 police visits wasn’t enough to hoist a red flag on Nicolas Cruz, what will run a flag up the pole.
As a high school freshman, Rittenhouse participated in the Explorers program at the Grayslake Police Department, as well as a cadet program at the Antioch Fire Department, with the goal of becoming a paramedic or working in law enforcement.[2] Eventually transitioning to online school, he dropped out and left Lakes Community High School altogether in 2018 after attending for one semester in 2017–2018.[2][3] He expressed interest in law enforcement through publicly-viewable social media posts. In December 2018, Rittenhouse started a fundraiser through Facebook for Humanizing the Badge, a nonprofit.[3] Other posts revolved around "honoring police, with Blue Lives Matter graphics, photos of officers killed in the line of duty, and the "thin blue line" flag associated with support for law enforcement."[3] On his TikTok profile description, Rittenhouse had written, "BLUE LIVES MATTER 🔵" and "Trump 2020 🇺🇸 🇺🇸".[4] On January 30, 2020, Rittenhouse attended a Trump rally in Des Moines, Iowa, seated in the front row.[4] He got a part-time job as a lifeguard at the YMCA in Lindenhurst, but was furloughed in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began.[5][6]