The state’s case against Kyle Rittenhouse, who is on trial for two counts of homicide and one count of attempted homicide in connection for shooting three criminals who attacked him during the Blake Riots last year, suffered four more major setbacks yesterday.
- The medical examiner suggested that Joseph Rosenbaum, who attacked Rittenhouse first, must have reached for the then 17-year-old’s rifle. That testimony supports what an eyewitness told the jury last week.
- Jurors saw video of that shooting that clearly shows Rosenbaum lunging for Rittenhouse’s rifle.
- Another witness corroborated earlier testimony that Rosenbaum, a child rapist, was an unhinged lunatic threatening to kill people.
- A photographer who covered the riots testified that prosecutors pushed him to change his original statement to police.
All that follows devastating testimony from Gaige Grosskreutz. The convicted criminal confessed that he pointed his semi-automatic pistol at Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse shot him in the arm.
ME, Video
The forensic pathologist who performed autopsies on Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, the convicted strangler who attacked Rittenhouse with his skateboard, told the jury that Rosenbaum’s hand had to have been near or touching Rittenhouse’s AR-15.
Assistant District Attorney James Krauss asked for “an explanation of how that hand could be positioned that would result in the injury shown, and then also perhaps the injury to the thigh from that same round?”
Replied coroner Doug Kelley:
This is a close range injury.… His hand is in close proximity or in contact with the end of that rifle, so you can kind of think of it in your head, if you know if you put the end of the rifle close to that trajectory through his hand, you move the hand around, you can put it in different relationships to the body that can explain that. Typically, by turning the palm toward the ground it would make sense that it could go through the hand, hit the ground, and create the injuries to the left side of the thigh.
That testimony backs up what Daily Caller reporter Richie McGinniss told prosecutors last week. McGinniss was feet away from Rosenbaum when Rittenhouse shot the raging leftist.
Rosenbaum, who raped five boys, said “f**k you and then he reached for the weapon,” McGinnis testified.
The video jurors saw clearly shows Rosenbaum chasing and cornering Rittenhouse, then reaching for Rittenhouse’s rifle. That’s when Rittenhouse fired.
Rosenbaum Threats
Jurors also heard from a witness who described Rosenbaum as an unhinged sociopath:
Rosenbaum started shouting back at us that he’s gonna — pardon me, judge for saying this and everybody else — he was gonna kill us “motherf**kers, motherf**king n*gg*rs” and “cut our hearts out. ”
That testimony backed up what a witness told the jury last week:
Rosenbaum was right there in front of my face, yellin’ and screaming, and I said, ‘dude, back up, chill, I don’t know what your problem is,’ and he goes, “you know what, if I catch any of you guys alone tonight I’m gonna f**king kill you.
“And he said that to you?” Assistant DA Thomas Binger asked.
“Yes,” the witness replied.
Binger: “Did he say that to the defendant as well?”
Witness: “The defendant was there, so yes.”
Change Your Statement
If all that weren’t bad enough for prosecutors, freelance photographer Nathan DeBruin, who captured images of the violence that night, said prosecutors asked him to change his statement to police.
“I said I would not,” DeBruin testified, whereupon Binger “pulled out a cell phone and showed me a video and also a photo, which was actually one photo that I brought today, and asked me if I knew who a gentleman was in that photo, and I said I did not.”
Binger identified the man as Joshua Ziminski, whom police charged with firing a shot near Rittenhouse.
Binger put the phone down for a moment, DeBruin testified, then picked it up and asked DeBruin who was in the photo. “I confusingly said Joshua Ziminski,” DeBruin said.
Binger then asked whether he wanted to add that fact to his police statement.
“I just felt … I didn’t wanna change my statement,” DeBruin said.
After that, DeBruin hired an attorney.
Then came this exchange:
Prosecutor James Krauss: You said there was a lot of tension in the room when you met with [prosecutors]…. Is it fair to say that you were very nervous?
DeBruin: Yeah, absolutely.
Krauss: And we did have you read over your statement, right?
DeBruin: Correct.
Krauss: And we asked if you knew anything beyond that statement?
DeBruin: Correct.
Krauss: We didn’t ask you to change it?
DeBruin: Yes, you did.
H/T: Daily Caller
