Before Kyle Rittenhouse allegedly opened fire on anti-racist protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday night killing two and severely injuring another a video showed police essentially deputizing the 17-year-old.

Rittenhouse had been walking the streets of Kenosha carrying an assault rifle alongside other armed white men, a local self-styled militia formed for the purported purpose of protecting property from protesters.

We appreciate you guys, we really do, a cop can be heard telling the group over a loudspeaker before tossing Rittenhouse a bottle of water.

It was a scene familiar in American history: agents of the state conscripting armed white vigilantes to help violently suppress movements for racial justice and liberation. (Cops and the Klan go hand in hand , the common protest chant goes.)

So it wasnt surprising to see Rittenhouse, in another video published Tuesday, walk toward police after allegedly killing the two protesters or for him not to be apprehended until the following day, when he was arrested at his home in Illinois.

As historic uprisings against police brutality have swept the country in recent months, antagonistic right-wing vigilantes have been a constant, menacing presence . Often seen patrolling Black Lives Matter protests with the tacit and very often explicit support of law enforcement, these vigilantes have shot protesters, attacked them with cars, and beaten them.

And as political tensions intensify heading into the presidential election this fall with a president who routinely demonizes anti-racist protesters as thugs and terrorists , and with reactionary police forces desperate to beat back calls for their own abolishment theres genuine concern that the deadly vigilante violence on display in Kenosha could be replicated elsewhere.