Prosecutors have rested their case against Kyle Rittenhouse after 5 1/2 days of testimony in which they sought to portray him as the instigator in the shootings that left two men dead and a third wounded during street protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
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Prosecutors used extensive video and witnesses, including two former military veterans who were on the streets alongside Rittenhouse, in a bid to convince the jury he was the aggressor. But some of the witnesses also offered testimony that seemed to bolster Rittenhouse's claim that he acted in self-defense.
A protester and volunteer medic wounded on the streets of Kenosha by Kyle Rittenhouse testified Monday that he was pointing his own gun at the rifle-toting Rittenhouse — unintentionally, he said — when the young man shot him.
Gaige Grosskreutz, the third and final man gunned down by Rittenhouse during a night of turbulent racial-justice protests in the summer of 2020, took the stand at Rittenhouse's murder trial and recounted how he drew his own pistol after the bloodshed started.
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“I thought the defendant was an active shooter,” the 27-year-old Grosskreutz said. Asked what was going through his mind as he got closer to the 17-year-old Rittenhouse, he said, “That I was going to die.”
Rittenhouse, now 18, is on trial on charges of killing two men and wounding Grosskreutz. The one-time police youth cadet from Antioch, Illinois, had gone to Kenosha with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle and a medical kit in what he said was an effort to safeguard property from the violent demonstrations that broke out over the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white Kenosha police officer.
Prosecutors have portrayed Rittenhouse as the instigator of the bloodshed. His lawyers have argued that he acted in self-defense. He could get life in prison if convicted of the most serious charges against him.
Additional reporting by The Associated Press.
