Witness: Kenosha victim was belligerent but no threat

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — The first man shot and killed by Kyle Rittenhouse on the streets of Kenosha was acting “belligerently” that night but did not appear to pose a serious threat to anyone, a witness testified Friday at Rittenhouse’s murder trial.

Jason Lackowski, a former Marine who said he took an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to Kenosha last year to help protect property during violent protests against racial injustice, said that Joseph Rosenbaum “asked very bluntly to shoot him” and took a few “false steppings ... to entice someone to do something.”

Lackowski got up from the witness stand and demonstrated what he called “false stepping.” He took a small step and slight lurch forward, then stopped.

But Lackowski, who was called as a witness by the prosecution, said he viewed Rosenbaum as a “babbling idiot” and turned his back and ignored him.

In other testimony, the prosecution suffered a potential blow when Rosenbaum’s fiancee, Kariann Swart, disclosed that he was on medication for bipolar disorder and depression — information Rittenhouse’s lawyers could use to help make the case that Rosenbaum was the aggressor that night.

The judge allowed the defense to elicit such testimony because prosecutors first mentioned medication. Had prosecutors not touched on the topic, it is unlikely the judge would have let the defense bring it up.

On the day he was shot, Rosenbaum had been released from a Milwaukee hospital. The jury was told that much, but not why he had been admitted — after a suicide attempt.

Rittenhouse, 18, is charged with shooting three men, two fatally, in the summer of 2020. The one-time police youth cadet was 17 when he went to Kenosha with an Ar-style rifle and a medical kit in what he said was an effort to safeguard property from the demonstrations that broke out over the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white Kenosha police officer.

Rittenhouse is white, as were those he shot. Prosecutors have portrayed Rittenhouse as the instigator of the bloodshed, while his lawyer has argued that he acted in self-defense, suggesting among other things that Rittenhouse feared his weapon would be taken away and used against him.

On Thursday, witnesses testified that a belligerent Rosenbaum angrily threatened to kill Rittenhouse that night and that Rosenbaum was later gunned down after he chased Rittenhouse and lunged for the young man’s rifle.