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A Maserati-driving, rifle-toting protester who arrived outside the Kenosha courthouse this week to yell abuse at Black Lives Matter demonstrators has been revealed as a disgraced former police officer from Ferguson, Missouri.
Jesse T. Kline was hired by Ferguson police in November 2015 and was a member of the Patrol K-9 Division before his arrest in 2018 on charges of stalking.
He was accused of following his ex-girlfriend and threatening her and the man she was with, pointing the barrel of a Glock 21 handgun at the chest of the man. Charges were dropped in January 2020 when his former partner and the man refused to testify against him.
Kline was swiftly identified on social media after he appeared as ‘Maserati Mike’ in Kenosha on Wednesday to stage a high-profile protest in his body armor outside the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.
Jesse Kline is pictured left as ‘Maserati Mike’, outside the courthouse in Kenosha on Wednesday, and right in his 2018 booking photo when he was a serving member of Ferguson, Missouri police department. He was fired following his arrest for stalking
Kline is seen on Thursday outside the Kenosha court house for a second day, taunting anti-Rittenhouse protesters. On Wednesday he arrived in his Maseratil; on Thursday he brought his dog and carried an empty gun case
Kline, who told people he was ‘Maserati Mike’, gets out of his black Maserati at Kenosha courthouse on Wednesday. He was the first protester there and chanted through his megaphone ‘Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization’
His former boss, chief of Ferguson police, Frank McCall, confirmed that ‘Mike’ was indeed Kline.
‘I can confirm that this is former Officer Jesse Kline who was terminated by the Ferguson Police Department several years ago,’ McCall told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal.
Kline also told the paper that he was the former Ferguson officer in question.
He arrived on Wednesday in the black sports car where he takes his nickname, carrying a megaphone and wearing thin-rimmed glasses and a bow-tie.
‘Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization,’ he chanted, before being told by officers stationed outside the court to put his gun away.
‘That subject was talked to by officers, and the situation was resolved. The man put his rifle away voluntarily. We did not take any further action,’ Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department told DailyMail.com.
Kline complied, then left the court in his sports car.
‘Mike’ was wearing a shirt, bow-tie and slacks, as well as a bullet proof vest on Wednesday. He was carrying an assault rifle and megaphone
Sheriffs deputies rushed to tell him to put his gun away because he was within 1000ft of a school, which he complied with
The activist is one of many who has turned up at the courthouse to support Rittenhouse, who is on trial for murder
Kline is seen on Thursday outside the court in Kenosha, Wisconsin
Kline carried an empty gun case and brought his dog on Thursday
He was outside court again on Thursday, as the jury deliberated for a third day.
They left the courthouse around 4:10pm CT, after informing the judge that they were done for the day.
‘You’ve certainly put in a full day and have asked to retire for the evening, which is fine,’ Judge Bruce Schroeder told the jury.
The seven women and five men have spent roughly 23 hours deliberating over the past three days.
Judge Schroeder granted one juror’s request to take copies of the instructions home with them and noted that the 36 pages are complicated.
‘I don’t know about you guys, I watch a little TV in the morning and in the evening, and some of the greatest legal minds in the country, I’m delighted to say, agree with us that the instructions are very confusing,’ the judge told the prosecution and defense.
Rittenhouse faces life behind bars if found guilty of the charges the jurors are now deliberating – attempted murder, murder and recklessly endangering public safety.
There is heightened security at the courthouse both from law enforcement and private security guards hired by media organizations
A protester outside Kenosha County Court House on Wednesday morning as jury deliberations entered a second day
Mike is shown back to his Maserati after chanting through a megaphone. There is increased angst surrounding the trial and verdict, which is expected at any moment this week
A woman waving an American flag outside Kenosha Court House on Wednesday morning as jury deliberations entered a 2nd day
Jacob Blake’s uncle, Justin, returned to the courthouse for a second day. It was Blake being shot by a cop that sparked the riot Rittenhouse attended. Blake was armed with a knife when he was shot by a cop who’d been called there by the mother of Blake’s children who said ‘he’s got my kid!’
Rittenhouse is pictured drawing the names of the jurors who will either convict or acquit him from a drum inside the court on Tuesday
Protesters outside Kenosha County Courthouse on Wednesday afternoon as the jury entered its second day of deliberations
A Kyle Rittenhouse supporter wearing a ’45’ hat in reference to 45th President Donald Trump outside the courthouse on Wednesday
The case has divided the nation and brought back to the surface the debate that tore through cities last summer; Rittenhouse, then 17, shot dead two BLM protesters during a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that was triggered by the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
He considers himself a vigilante and won a swell of support from around the country by others who labeled him a hero for defending the city against a BLM ‘mob’.
Prosecutors tried to paint the teen as a blood-thirsty, trigger-happy, privileged white boy who was given a soft touch by the local police.
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