Expert at Rittenhouse trial zeroes in on few minutes around shooting
KENOSHA, WIS. — Less than three seconds elapsed between the time a protester in the streets fired a shot in the air and Kyle Rittenhouse opened fire with his rifle, a use-of-force expert testified for the defense Thursday at Rittenhouse’s murder trial.
John Black took the stand as part of an effort by Rittenhouse’s lawyers to show that the then-17-year-old had reason to fear for his life and acted in self-defense when he shot three men, killing two, during a turbulent night of protests against racial injustice in Kenosha last year.
The defense has suggested to the jury that the relevant timeframe for determining whether Rittenhouse’s use of force was reasonable consists of just a few minutes around the shootings.
Black said it took 2 minutes, 55 seconds, from the time the first man who was shot that night, Joseph Rosenbaum,
chased Rittenhouse across a car lot to the time Rittenhouse approached police, after the shootings.
Prosecutors, for their part, have stressed a much longer window, saying the tragic chain of events occurred over hours, starting with Rittenhouse’s fateful decision to go to a volatile protest with a rifle.
Rittenhouse, now 18, committed the shootings during unrest that erupted in Kenosha in the summer of 2020 over the wounding of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white Kenosha police officer. He could get life in prison if convicted. Rittenhouse is white, as were those he shot.
Rittenhouse had gone to
Kenosha with an AR-style semi-automatic weapon and a medic bag in what the former police and fire youth cadet said was an effort to protect property after rioters had set fires and ransacked businesses on previous nights.
The case has divided Americans over whether Rittenhouse was a patriot taking a stand against lawlessness or a vigilante.
On Wednesday, Rittenhouse spent most of the day on the stand giving his account of what happened in those frenzied minutes on Aug. 25, 2020, sobbing so hard at one point that the judge called a recess.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I defended myself,” he said.
Rittenhouse testified that he heard a gunshot directly behind him as he was being chased by Rosenbaum, but also that he never saw Rosenbaum with a gun. Authorities said the shot was a bullet fired into the air by someone else in the crowd.