Fact Check: Kyle Rittenhouse Purportedly Was 'Banned' from Marines After Badly Failing Military Entrance Exam. Here Are the Facts

Claim:

Kyle Rittenhouse scored so low on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test, which is required for enlistment into the U.S. Armed Forces, that he was permanently disqualified from serving in the Marines.

Rating:

What's True:

It's true that Rittenhouse attempted to join the U.S. Marines in 2020, but was "disqualified from serving after discussing his options with recruiters," according to a statement given to The Washington Post by Marine Corps spokesperson Yvonne Carlock.

What's False:

There is zero verifiable evidence that Rittenhouse was permanently disqualified from serving because of a low ASVAB test score (the test can be retaken multiple times).

What's Undetermined:

It's unknown how far Rittenhouse got into the enlistment process, including whether he even took the ASVAB test. Moreover, it has not been revealed what the actual reason was for his disqualification.

In the first week of April 2024, numerous accounts on X shared posts suggesting that Kyle Rittenhouse, the then-teenager who shot and killed two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during an August 2020 protest against police brutality, had done so poorly on an entrance exam for the U.S. Marine Corps that he was permanently barred from enlisting in the service. As evidence, the posts included the image of an email stating that Rittenhouse attempted to join the Marines in January 2020 but was rejected because of a low test score.

The claim spread rapidly across social media, with accounts either defending or mocking Rittenhouse's actions. We set out to determine whether this email was authentic and whether the claim it supported was true:

This email is supposedly from a Kenosha Police Field Report, which Snopes is attempting to obtain. We have cropped the image to allow for greater readability. (X user @ChasinWhiteCaps)

In a profile on Rittenhouse written less than a week after the events in Kenosha, The Washington Post reported that he had attempted to join the Marines in early 2020 but was "disqualified from serving after discussing his options with recruiters." Yvonne Carlock, the service spokesperson who talked to the Post for the story, did not explain why he was disqualified, citing privacy guidelines. Needless to say, there was no mention of a "low test score."

Snopes reached out to Carlock to confirm her statement to The Washington Post and also contacted the Marine Corps for confirmation that Rittenhouse had attempted to join the Marines and was disqualified, but as of this writing we have not received replies.

We set out to determine if the email image was real. Our first lead came from a Reddit post. In the comments section of the post, one user claimed the email originated from a particular page in the Kenosha Police Department's field report on Rittenhouse's actions in August 2020. Snopes sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Kenosha Police Department and the Kenosha County Sheriff's Department asking for a copy of the field report.

We did receive our FOIA documents from the Kenosha Police Department in mid-May 2024, but did not find the email in question inside that copy of the report, so we were unable to confirm the email's origin or authenticity.

However, we are able to fact-check the main claim circulating online, regardless.

Is a Low Test Score the Reason Rittenhouse Was Barred from Enlisting?

We found no reliable evidence that Rittenhouse was permanently disqualified from enlisting in the Marines because of a low test score.

The ASVAB test is a required test for everyone who wishes to enlist in any branch of the U.S. Military. Therefore, if Rittenhouse attempted to join the Marines, he would have been required to take the test  — if he got that far into the process.

But the ASVAB test is not something you're only allowed to take once, according to the U.S. Army's website:

Therefore, it doesn't make sense to claim that a low ASVAB score would permanently disqualify someone from enlisting in the Marines. While we are unable to ascertain why exactly Rittenhouse was disqualified from serving (there are multiple theories out there, each of which we investigated), we can say that based on the rules of the U.S. military, he would not have been permanently disqualified because of a bad ASVAB score.

We have not been able to confirm that Rittenhouse even took the test.

What We Know About the 'Low Test Score' Email

As noted above, we submitted a FOIA request for a copy of the Kenosha Police Department field report that was allegedly the source of the email. Under Wisconsin's Open Records Law, police departments and sheriffs must either deliver requested documents "as soon as practicable and without delay," or inform the interested party that the request has been denied. If they choose to deny the request, they must write and explain why. Information Snopes found on the Kenosha Police Department's website suggested that we would hear back within 10 business days, which is the standard time estimate given for Freedom of Information Act requests.

In the meantime, we tracked down posts on X that showed an additional set of emails that allegedly came from the same document. We now had a list of the names of five FBI agents. Snopes was able to find public information confirming three of them were indeed FBI employees. A fourth showed up in Google search results, but did not appear on the linked pages. The fifth individual, Rebecca-Lynn Laufer (from whose account the email was allegedly sent), was the only individual we could not find any public information about. This level of detailed accuracy signifies that either this is a highly detailed fake, complete with the names of real FBI employees, or it is real.

Next, we looked for the source of the information. One X post by David Hancock, who claimed that he advised Rittenhouse during the latter's trial for homicide but had since regretted his actions, credited the image to another X account run by a man named Paul Prediger.

In Kenosha, Rittenhouse shot and killed two people, and injured a third. Prediger, formerly known as Gaige Grosskreutz, is the man Rittenhouse wounded but did not kill. Snopes reached out to Prediger, Hancock and Rittenhouse for comment. Prediger provided a copy of a 938-page report from the Kenosha Police Department on Rittenhouse, which contained the email in question on page 572.

When we received our FOIA documents from the Kenosha Police Department, we found that it was similar but not identical to Prediger's copy. We did not find the email in question inside the FOIA version of the report we received and still cannot confirm that it is genuine.

Sources:

Armus, Teo, et al. "Before a Fatal Shooting, Teenage Kenosha Suspect Idolized the Police." Washington Post, 19 Nov. 2021. www.washingtonpost.com, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/27/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-protests/.

"ASVAB Test & Preparation." Goarmy.Com, https://www.goarmy.com/how-to-join/steps/asvab.html. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.

"Attorneys for Man Shot during Protest in Kenosha Say Kyle Rittenhouse Is Evading Them." PBS NewsHour, 23 Feb. 2023, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/attorneys-for-man-shot-during-protest-in-kenosha-say-kyle-rittenhouse-is-evading-them.

"Https://Twitter.Com/ChasinWhiteCaps/Status/1775215543345152056?t=bXkATrDsKusuyBLdA5IZ7w." X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/ChasinWhiteCaps/status/1775215543345152056?t=bXkATrDsKusuyBLdA5IZ7w. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.

"Https://Twitter.Com/DanLamothe/Status/1299054126446321664." X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/DanLamothe/status/1299054126446321664. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.

"Https://Twitter.Com/DaveHan06/Status/1774751376889057282?t=7SPMuO1FwhUVnA30w79byg." X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/DaveHan06/status/1774751376889057282?t=7SPMuO1FwhUVnA30w79byg. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.

"Https://Twitter.Com/Daybreaker/Status/1774986889067364539." X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/daybreaker/status/1774986889067364539. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.

"Https://Twitter.Com/Jamesstout/Status/1775163288990429628." X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/jamesstout/status/1775163288990429628. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.

"Https://Twitter.Com/Joekassabian/Status/1775187855934914724." X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/joekassabian/status/1775187855934914724. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.

"Https://Twitter.Com/realTuckFrumper/Status/1775267238616113355." X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/realTuckFrumper/status/1775267238616113355. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.

"Https://Twitter.Com/RyanShead/Status/1774586223295946995." X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/RyanShead/status/1774586223295946995. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.

"Man Who Survived Rittenhouse Shooting Seeks Name Change." AP News, 30 Sept. 2022, https://apnews.com/article/kyle-rittenhouse-wisconsin-shootings-kenosha-e4e1dbad9f01dbe7503800672908a302.

u/Dookie1. "Kyle Rittenhouse Is Banned from Joining the Military Because He's Too Dumb." Reddit.Com/r/Behindthebastards, 3 Apr. 2024, https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/1bu4grq/kyle_rittenhouse_is_banned_from_joining_the/.

Uphues, Bob. "Cops Recognized." Riverside Brookfield Landmark, 11 Apr. 2017, http://www.rblandmark.com/2017/04/11/cops-recognized/.

"Wisconsin Open Records Law." Ballotpedia, https://ballotpedia.org/Wisconsin_Open_Records_Law. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.

Updates:

May 24, 2024: This page was updated to reflect what we did and did not learn from the FOIA document received from the Kenosha Police Department. Accordingly, the rating was updated from "Research in Progress" to "Mixture."