Kyle Rittenhouse, right, looks on as the jury is let out of the room during a break during his trail at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Monday, Nov. 15, 2021. Rittenhouse is accused of killing two people and wounding a third during a protest over police brutality in Kenosha, last year. | AP
“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,” Thomas Binger told the jury.
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.
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.
Rittenhouse, now 18, killed two men and wounded a third during a tumultuous night of protests against racial injustice in the summer of 2020, in a case that has stirred bitter debate in the U.S. over guns, vigilantism and law and order.
Rittenhouse, then 17, 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.
Rittenhouse testified he came under attack from protesters, feared his gun would be taken away and used against him, and acted in self-defense.
But Binger 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.”
The defense was expected to deliver its closing argument in the afternoon.
Rittenhouse 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 closing argument, 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.
The prosecutor reminded jurors that Rittenhouse testified he knew Rosenbaum was unarmed. Binger also said there is no video to support the defense claim that Rosenbaum threatened to kill Rittenhouse.
Binger disputed the notion that Rosenbaum was trying to grab Rittenhouse’s rifle. “Mr. Rosenbaum is not even within arm’s reach when the first shot occurs,” Binger said. He rejected the idea that Rittenhouse had no choice but to shoot, saying he could have run away.
And Binger argued that once Rosenbaum was wounded, he was not even capable of taking away the gun, which was strapped to Rittenhouse’s body, since he was falling to the ground with a fractured pelvis. Rittenhouse kept firing, delivering what the prosecutor called the “kill shot” to Rosenbaum’s back.
“I think we can also agree that we shouldn’t have 17-year-olds running around our streets with AR-15s, because this is exactly what happens,” Binger said.
After killing Rosenbaum, Rittenhouse shot and killed Anthony Huber, 26, and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, 28, while trying to make his way through the crowd.
Rittenhouse testified that Huber hit him with a skateboard, and that Grosskreutz came at him with a gun of his own — an account largely corroborated by a wealth of video and some of the prosecution’s own witnesses.
But Binger said Rittenhouse provoked the bloodshed that followed Rosenbaum’s shooting: Huber, Grosskreutz and others in the crowd were trying to stop what they believed was an active shooter, exercising their own right to self-defense.
When it was all over, Rittenhouse walked away like a “hero in a Western — without a care in the world for anything he’s just done,” Binger said.
When the prosecutor displayed a photograph of Rosenbaum’s bloodied body lying on a gurney during his autopsy and another of Rosenbaum’s mangled hand, some jurors appeared to avert their eyes from the TV monitors. And later, when Binger displayed a close-up photo of Grosskreutz’s bicep largely obliterated by a bullet through his arm, several jurors winced and turned away.
As he spoke, Binger walked up to the jury box and lifted the actual rifle used in the shootings as if he were firing, the prosecutor looking down its barrel and pointing it at courtroom wall.
Rittenhouse’s mother, Wendy Rittenhouse, listened intently in the courtroom.
Supporters have hailed Rittenhouse as a hero who took a stand against lawlessness; foes have branded him a vigilante.
Binger began his closing arguments by questioning whether Rittenhouse was genuinely trying to help.
The prosecutor noted that Rittenhouse had ammunition capable of traveling the length of five football fields and passing through cars, and asked the jury: “Why do you need 30 rounds of full metal jacket (ammo) to protect a building?” And he said the rifle was incompatible with Rittenhouse’s claim that he was there as a medic.
He said Rittenhouse and others like him were “wannabe soldiers” and “chaos tourists” drawn to the unrest in Kenosha. Rittenhouse thought he was a junior police officer who could run around and stop crime, according to the prosecutor. He said Rittenhouse was “looking for trouble.”
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 underage weapon charge 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 short-barreled, 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 Monday as he launched into 36 pages of instructions to the jury, explaining the charges and the laws of self-defense.
In his instructions, the judge said that to decide that Rittenhouse acted lawfully in self-defense, 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.
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.
With a verdict near, Gov. Tony Evers said that 500 National Guard members would be prepared for duty in Kenosha if local law enforcement requested them.
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Bauer reported from Madison and Forliti reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press writer Tammy Webber contributed from Fenton, Michigan.
