5 takeaways as the Rittenhouse defense gets started
KENOSHA, Wis. — Prosecutors rested their case against Kyle Rittenhouse Tuesday, following five days of testimony in which several witnesses — including one of the men he shot — appeared to bolster the Antioch teen’s self-defense claims.
Rittenhouse’s team began calling witnesses, starting with a Kenosha man who told Rittenhouse about plans to guard a used car lot near the downtown.
Here are five takeaways from Tuesday, including testimony from defense witnesses.
1. The judge tossed the curfew violation against Rittenhouse. In the year since the Kenosha unrest, many curfew violations have been tossed by judges over concerns that Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth did not have the authority to institute it. Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder did the same as he threw out the charge and spared Rittenhouse a $200 fine. The jury was told the municipal ticket was no longer part of the case, but the other six charges still remained.
2. Jacob Blake’s family is frustrated: Rittenhouse fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz while patrolling downtown Kenosha with an AR-15-style rifle amid the turmoil and unrest surrounding the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer. Blake’s uncle Justin Blake, who has quietly protested outside the courthouse each day, told the Tribune he has been disappointed in what he has seen so far. “We feel that the prosecutor hasn’t really shown their teeth,” he said. “They need to nail down why and how this young man (killed) two people and shot a third. I don’t think he’s (Rittenhouse) going to walk. I think he’s going to go down. But I do think that the prosecution hasn’t done their job in full and in its entirety ... can lead to someone getting off.”
3. Rittenhouse killed Rosenbaum with a fatal shot in the back. Shortly before the prosecution rested, Doug Kelley, a forensic pathologist with the Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office, told jurors Rosenbaum was shot four times and the fatal bullet was fired into his back as he was falling or already on the ground. He also suffered a non-life threatening bullet wound on his hand that suggests it was either touching or extremely close to Rittenhouse’s gun, backing the defense argument Rosenbaum was reaching for the teen’s gun when he pulled the trigger.
Videographer Richard McGinniss testified Rosenbaum had unsuccessfully lunged for the teen’s gun and appeared to be falling toward the ground when he was fatally shot. The autopsy findings seem to support his account.
4. There’s a dispute over whether the car lot owners gave the armed guards permission to be on their property. Rittenhouse spent much of the evening guarding a used car lot in downtown Kenosha. The lot owners’ sons testified last week that the armed guards didn’t have permission to be on the property, and prosecutors bolstered this claim when they showed jurors a text message from Rittenhouse offering to provide armed security for the property. The text went unanswered.
The defense disputed this claim by calling Nick Smith, who used to work at the car lot and told Rittenhouse, a friend of a friend, about plans to guard the property. He testified the owners’ sons specifically asked for help, took pictures with the guards and promised to pay them for their efforts. However, no one ever received payment, Smith said.
5. Joseph Rosenbaum participated in vandalism and a trash bin fire before the shootings. Freelance photographer Nathan DeBruin testified about several pictures he took of Rosenbaum before the shootings, including images of him tipping over a portable toilet, pushing a burning trash bin and swinging a metal chain. The defense has argued Rosenbaum’s menacing behavior in the lead-up to the shooting played a part in Rittenhouse’s mindset when he pulled the trigger.
The defense made headlines before the trial as it signaled plans to portray all three men Rittenhouse shot as rioters. There has been evidence of Rosenbaum participating in destructive acts, but so far nothing has been presented that ties Grosskreutz or Huber to any violent behavior before crossing paths with Rittenhouse.
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