Prosecutor claims Rittenhouse lost right to self-defense by bringing a gun

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 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 is white, as were those he shot.

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

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

In his own closing argument, defense attorney Mark Richards called one of the men Rittenhouse shot a “rioter” and a “crazy person” who went after the defendent unprovoked.

“Mr. ( Joseph) 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, adding that Rittenhouse never pointed his gun before being chased: “It didn’t happen.”

Richards said Rittenhouse was then attacked by a “mob.” The defense attorney accused prosecutors of calling Rittenhouse an “active shooter” because of “the loaded connotations of that word.”

And in an apparent reference to the police shooting of a Black man that touched off the protests, Richards said: “Other people in this community have shot people seven times, and it’s been found to be OK.” (No charges were brought against the white officer.)

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.

After closing arguments, names were to be drawn to determine which 12 of the 18 jurors who heard testimony would deliberate, with the rest dismissed as alternates.