Man Shot by Kyle Rittenhouse Describes the Encounter on a Kenosha Street

KENOSHA, Wis. — Gaige Grosskreutz, the lone idiosyncratic who survived being changeable by Kyle Rittenhouse successful Kenosha, Wis., successful August 2020, took the witnesser basal connected Monday and described the instant helium faced Mr. Rittenhouse, who had conscionable fired respective shots with a semiautomatic rifle.

“What was going done your caput astatine this peculiar moment?” Thomas Binger, the prosecutor, asked successful court.

“That I was going to die,” Mr. Grosskreutz, a unpaid paramedic, said.

As the prosecution’s lawsuit successful the homicide proceedings of Mr. Rittenhouse nears an end, Mr. Grosskreutz, 28, calmly delivered grounds for respective hours arsenic a prima witnesser for the state. But his grounds astatine times lent enactment to Mr. Rittenhouse’s cardinal claim, that helium was acting successful self-defense erstwhile helium changeable Mr. Grosskreutz and 2 different men. The grounds underscored a broader situation for prosecutors, who look the load of disproving the script laid retired by Mr. Rittenhouse’s lawyers.

Those lawyers person argued that Mr. Rittenhouse fired successful self-defense during a chaotic, lawless nighttime successful Kenosha connected the 3rd nighttime of protests and rioting aft the constabulary shooting of Jacob Blake connected Aug. 23, 2020. The archetypal antheral Mr. Rittenhouse shot, Joseph Rosenbaum, was erratic and threatening to radical connected the thoroughfare that night, the defence has said, and successful the divided 2nd earlier Mr. Rittenhouse changeable him, Mr. Rosenbaum lunged successful his absorption and reached for his weapon. After Mr. Rittenhouse changeable him 4 times and fled down the street, helium changeable 2 others who were pursuing him, Anthony Huber and Mr. Grosskreutz.

Under cross-examination by a lawyer for Mr. Rittenhouse, Mr. Grosskreutz gave grounds that suggested his relation successful the events of Aug. 25, 2020, was complicated. Like Mr. Rittenhouse, Mr. Grosskreutz was equipped that night, and helium was asked wherefore helium had falsely told constabulary detectives soon aft the shooting that his Glock pistol had fallen retired of its holster that nighttime — alternatively than saying helium had pulled it out, arsenic ocular grounds showed. Under questioning, helium besides acknowledged that helium was carrying the weapon concealed without a valid licence to bash truthful and that helium had denied a petition from the constabulary successful September 2020 to interrogation him astir the shootings.

As Mr. Grosskreutz described the seconds earlier Mr. Rittenhouse changeable him, helium was shown photos that captured him pointing his weapon astatine Mr. Rittenhouse.

“So erstwhile you were lasting 3 to 5 feet from him with your arms up successful the air, helium ne'er fired, right?” Corey Chirafisi, a defence lawyer, asked.

“Correct,” Mr. Grosskreutz answered.

“It wasn’t until you pointed your weapon astatine him, precocious connected him with your weapon — present your hands down, pointed astatine him — that helium fired, right?” Mr. Chirafisi said.

“Correct,” he said.

Through 5 days of testimony, respective witnesses who person been called by the prosecution person offered accounts that were complex, alternatively than plainly favorable to the state’s lawsuit against Mr. Rittenhouse. Some witnesses person fixed grounds that was ambiguous — adjuvant to the prosecution astatine immoderate moments and adjuvant to the defence astatine others.

One witness, Richie McGinniss, a videographer for The Daily Caller, a blimpish quality and sentiment site, who was lasting adjacent Mr. Rittenhouse astatine the clip of the archetypal shooting, told the assemblage his beingness was astatine hazard by the shots Mr. Rittenhouse fired. The grounds offered enactment to a number of reckless endangerment that is among six charges, including first-degree intentional homicide, successful the prosecution’s transgression complaint.

Mr. McGinniss gave searing and affectional grounds of the trauma and idiosyncratic information that helium endured, telling the assemblage that helium stepped retired of the enactment of occurrence conscionable earlier Mr. Rittenhouse changeable Mr. Rosenbaum, 36, and had to stamp his ain legs connected the crushed afterward to marque definite helium had not been deed by a bullet.

Mr. McGinniss recalled connected the basal however helium had tried to prevention Mr. Rosenbaum’s life, applying unit to his wounds and loading him into a conveyance to instrumentality him to a hospital. When the 2 were successful the backmost of the S.U.V. together, arsenic Mr. Rosenbaum was dying, Mr. McGinniss tried to reassure him, helium testified.

“I was conscionable telling him that we’re going to person a brew unneurotic afterwards, and it was each going to beryllium OK,” Mr. McGinniss, visibly shaken astatine the memory, told the courtroom.

But Mr. McGinniss besides offered what could beryllium the defense’s astir important witnesser testimony: that helium saw Mr. Rosenbaum pursuit Mr. Rittenhouse into a parking lot, lunge astatine him and scope for the tube of his rifle.

“He threw his momentum toward the weapon,” Mr. McGinnis said successful court.

Another prosecution witness, Kariann Swart, testified past week that she was the fiancée of Mr. Rosenbaum and possibly the past idiosyncratic adjacent to him to spot him alive, giving an relationship of their narration to the assemblage and describing her anguish astatine proceeding that helium had been killed.

On the greeting aft helium was fatally shot, she said, she went to the parking batch and saw the people connected the pavement wherever helium had been slain.

“I enactment my manus successful it, and my manus was bedewed with his blood,” she said. “I collapsed connected the ground.”

But Ms. Swart besides gave grounds that concurred with an assertion by the defence that Mr. Rosenbaum was behaving strangely successful the hours earlier helium was killed.

She said that connected the time of the shooting, Mr. Rosenbaum was released from a infirmary and that helium was taking medications for bipolar upset and depression. When Mr. Rosenbaum visited her astatine the motel wherever she was staying, Ms. Swart said, she had specifically told him not to spell to downtown Kenosha, wherever the unrest had been occurring for respective nights successful a row. He went anyway, carrying a tiny integrative container of items from the hospital, she said.

Jason Lackowski, different prosecution witnesser and 1 of the equipped men who was successful Kenosha that nighttime with the extremity of protecting property, told the tribunal past week that Mr. Rosenbaum was “a babbling idiot,” downplaying the menace that Mr. Rosenbaum mightiness person posed to Mr. Rittenhouse.

But helium besides testified that successful the minutes aft the shootings, helium recovered Mr. Grosskreutz’s pistol lying connected the thoroughfare and emptied its chamber.

Dan Hinkel contributed reporting.