Kyle Rittenhouse Trial: Jurors See New Drone Video Of The Shooting Death Of Joseph Rosenbaum
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Before resting their case Tuesday afternoon, Kenosha County prosecutors showed jurors in the Kyle Ritenhouse trial drone video of Rittenhouse shooting and killing Joseph Rosenbaum.
CBS 2's Charlie De Mar reports, while the facts of this case have hardly been in dispute, new video just turned over late last week provided the clearest look of the first of three shootings Rittenhouse committed on the night of Aug. 25, 2020, leaving Rosenbaum and another man dead, and a third man wounded.
Prosecutors have spent the past week trying to paint Rittenhouse as a reckless teenage vigilante who inserted himself in a situation where he didn't belong, as the defense has countered that Rittenhouse, then 17, was acting in self defense when he shot and killed Rosenbaum, and later killed Anthony Huber and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz.
Drone video shown to the jury on Tuesday shows the moment Rittenhouse killed Rosenbaum during a night of widespread civil unrest in Kenosha following the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer.
The video shows a cloud of smoke coming from Rittenhouse's rifle after he shot Rosenbaum four times, and then ran off.
Jurors also were shown graphic photos of Rosenbaum's and Anthony Huber's bodies, as Dr. Doug Kelley, a forensic pathologist, explained to the jury which wounds killed each man.
Rittenhouse would not look at the images as they were displayed in court.
"The back to front shots to the head, and then the kill shot to the back would have been while he was falling or perpendicular to ground," Kenosha County Assistant District Attorney James Krause said.
"The only way that the trajectories of the gunshot wounds to the right side of the head and the back make sense is if he's more horizontal to the ground," Kelley testified.
The state tried proving that Rosenbaum was falling or lunging towards the ground when Rittenhouse shot him, and that Rosenbaum didn't pose a threat. But attorneys for Rittenhosue argued a gunshot to Rosenbaum's hand proves he was grabbing for the barrel of the teen's AR-15, and that Rittenhouse shot in self-defense.
"So that hand was over the barrel of Mr. Rittenhouse's gun when his [Rosenbaum's] hand was shot," defense attorney Mark Richards said.
"That makes sense," Kelley said.
After the state turned the case over to the defense Tuesday afternoon, the jury heard from people who were with Rittenhouse moments after he shot the three people.
Nicholas Smith, who was with Rittenhouse and other armed men who were protecting a used car dealership on the night of the protests in Kenosha, described Rittenhouse as shaken after the shootings.
"Does he say anything?" defense attorney Corey Chirafisi asked
"He repeats 'I just shot someone' over and over; and I believe at some point he did say he had to shoot someone," Smith said.
Another witness, JoAnn Fiedler, quoted Rittenhouse as saying, "Oh my God, my life might be over."
She said he didn't give any details about what happened but told her he "had to do it."
Before the defense began presenting its case Tuesday afternoon, the judge threw out the 7th charge that Rittenhouse faced—a curfew violation. The judge said prosecutors did not provide enough evidence to support the charge.
It's expected Rittenhouse will take the stand in his own defense before his attorneys rest their case.