Kyle Rittenhouse trial: Drone video shows 1st shooting at close range
Global News
Prosecutors have portrayed Kyle Rittenhouse as the instigator of the bloodshed that night. His lawyers have argued that he acted in self-defense.
The jury at Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial Tuesday watched drone video that showed Rittenhouse wheeling around and shooting Joseph Rosenbaum at close range during a night of turbulent protests on the streets of Kenosha.
The video, zoomed in and slowed down by a forensic imaging specialist, was played as the prosecution’s case appeared to be winding down after a week of testimony in which some of its own witnesses often bolstered Rittenhouse’s claim of self-defense.
The footage showed Rosenbaum following Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse suddenly spins around and fires his rifle at him. Rosenbaum falls, and Rittenhouse runs around a car.
James Armstrong, the specialist, said the state crime lab did not receive the video until Sunday, nearly a week into the trial.
It was the clearest video yet of the fatal shooting in August 2020 that set in motion the bloodshed that followed moments later: Rittenhouse, then 17, killed Anthony Huber, a 26-year-old protester seen on bystander video hitting Rittenhouse with a skateboard. Rittenhouse then wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, a protester and volunteer medic.
Kenosha Detective Ben Antaramian testified that at some point in their investigation, authorities learned someone had recorded drone video. The video had played on a Fox News segment.
Prosecutors received a low-resolution copy earlier in their investigation but weren’t given a high-definition one until Friday.
Rittenhouse, now 18 and a former police youth cadet from Antioch, Illinois, had gone to Kenosha with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle and a medical kit in what he said was an effort to safeguard property from the sometimes-violent demonstrations that broke out over the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white Kenosha police officer.