Defense attorney: Rittenhouse feared for his life

KENOSHA, Wis. — Kyle Rittenhouse provoked bloodshed on the streets of Kenosha by bringing a semi-automatic rifle to a protest and menacing others, and when the shooting stopped, he walked off like a “hero in a Western,” a prosecutor said in closing arguments Monday at Rittenhouse’s murder trial.

But Rittenhouse’s attorney countered that the shooting started after the young man was ambushed by a “crazy person” that night and became afraid his gun was going to be wrested away and used to kill him.

Rittenhouse, then 17, killed two men and wounded a third during a tumultuous night of protests against racial injustice in the summer of 2020 — a case that has stirred bitter debate in the U.S. over guns, vigilantism and law and order.

Rittenhouse said he went to Kenosha from his home in nearby Antioch, Illinois, to protect property from rioters in the days after a Black man, Jacob Blake, was shot by a white Kenosha police officer. Rittenhouse, a former police youth cadet, is white, as were those he shot.

In closing arguments, prosecutor Thomas Binger repeatedly showed the jury drone video that he said depicted Rittenhouse pointing the AR-style weapon at demonstrators.

“This is the provocation. This is what starts this incident,” the prosecutor declared.

He told the jury: “You lose the right to self-defense when you’re the one who brought the gun, when you are the one creating the danger, when you’re the one provoking other people.“

Rittenhouse, now 18, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison if convicted of the most serious charge against him, first-degree intentional homicide, which is Wisconsin’s top murder charge.

Binger zeroed in on the killing of 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum, who was the first man gunned down that night and whose shooting set in motion the bloodshed that followed. The prosecutor repeatedly called it murder, saying it was unjustified.

After killing Rosenbaum, Rittenhouse shot and killed Anthony Huber, 26, and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, 28, while trying to make his way through the crowd.

In his own closing argument, defense attorney Mark Richards called Rosenbaum a “rioter” and a “crazy person” who went after Rittenhouse.

“Mr. Rosenbaum was shot because he was chasing my client and going to kill him, take his gun and carry out the threats he made,“Richards said.

Earlier Monday, Judge Bruce Schroeder dismissed a count of possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18, a misdemeanor that had appeared to be among the likeliest of the charges to net a conviction for prosecutors. The was punishable by up to nine months in jail.

But the defense argued that Wisconsin law has an exception related to the length of a weapon’s barrel. After prosecutors conceded Monday that Rittenhouse’s rifle was not shortbarreled, the judge threw out the charge.

Perhaps in recognition of weaknesses in their case, prosecutors asked the judge to let the jury consider several lesser charges if they acquit him on the original counts. Schroeder agreed to do so as he launched into 36 pages of legal instructions to the jury, explaining the charges and the laws of selfdefense.

In his instructions, the judge said that to decide that Rittenhouse acted lawfully in selfdefense, the jury must find that he believed there was an unlawful threat to him and that the amount of force he used was reasonable and necessary.