Armed EMT shot and wounded by Kyle Rittenhouse says he feared for his life

The man shot and wounded by Kyle Rittenhouse in August 2020 testified on Monday that he thought his life was in danger and feared he would be killed by the Illinois teenager during a chaotic and violent demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Gaige Grosskreutz acknowledged to the jury that he had unholstered his own gun, a Glock 27 Gen4, because he thought Rittenhouse, then 17, was an “active shooter.”

Though Grosskreutz’s shooting was captured on video, his testimony was the first time the public heard what he was thinking as he advanced toward Rittenhouse.

Grosskreutz testified he put his hands in the air when Rittenhouse pointed his weapon at him. He said he then saw Rittenhouse rerack his rifle.

“Reracking the weapon, in my mind, meant that the defendant pulled the trigger while my hands were in the air but the gun didn’t fire,” Grosskreutz said. “So then by reracking the weapon, I inferred that the defendant wasn’t accepting my surrender.”

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Grosskreutz said he felt “that I had to do something to try and prevent myself from being killed or being shot, and so, I decided that the best course of action was to close the distance between the defendant and I and then from there… I don’t know.”

The Milwaukee EMT, who was wearing a black Wu-Tang Clan T-shirt, khaki shorts, tennis shoes, and a blue hat that said “paramedic” on the night of the incident, said he went to Kenosha to volunteer his medical services, something he had done at police brutality protests in other cities. 

Grosskreutz also pushed back on claims he was the aggressor. 

“I do know I was never trying to kill the defendant,” he said. “It was never something I was trying to do. In that moment, I was trying to preserve my own life but doing so while also taking the life of another is not something I am capable or comfortable doing. It goes against almost a lifelong ethical code I have lived by in regards to medicine.”

Grosskreutz’s testimony started the second week of the high-profile trial.

Rittenhouse is accused of fatally shooting two men, Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and grievously injuring Grosskreutz on Aug. 25, 2020. The then-17-year-old fired an AR-15-style rifle that he was too young to buy legally and went to Kenosha to protect Car Source, an automobile dealership, located near the heart of the protests.

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Rittenhouse’s friend, Dominick Black, is accused of buying him the gun he used to kill Rosenbaum, a man who chased Rittenhouse into the Car Source parking lot and lunged for his gun, according to testimony. Rittenhouse, a former police youth cadet and part-time YMCA lifeguard, also shot and killed Huber, who swung a skateboard at him, and Rittenhouse then shot Grosskreutz in the arm, according to testimony.

Prosecutors have painted Rittenhouse as a trigger-happy “tourist” who deliberately inserted himself into the volatile scene with a gun he shouldn’t have had and wasn’t trained to use.

Rittenhouse’s lawyers claim he acted in self-defense. They have argued that Rosenbaum cornered Rittenhouse, that Huber attacked him, and that Grosskreutz might have opened fire if Rittenhouse hadn’t shot him first.

In Wisconsin, the legal standard for acting in self-defense centers on who initiated the aggression.

If Rittenhouse is found guilty of the most serious charge, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Liberals labeled Rittenhouse a white supremacist, while conservatives called him a “patriot” and collected hundreds of thousands of dollars for his defense, at times without the permission or knowledge of his legal team or the Rittenhouse family.

If he is acquitted, some fear it will signal the all-clear to vigilantism. If he’s found guilty, some conservative groups are likely to claim the decision was an assault on the Second Amendment.

Fireworks flew Friday after two brothers whose family own three car lots in downtown Kenosha told jurors that they never asked members of an armed militia to protect their businesses or gave them permission to do so.

Some of the men in Rittenhouse’s “group” previously testified that a friend of a friend of Rittenhouse’s who used to work at Car Source offered to help and that the owner, Anmol “Sam” Khindri accepted and gave the group the keys to the repair shop and a ladder to get on the roof.

Khindri testified he had no such conversations nor did he offer up keys to his business. He did say he recalled Rittenhouse was among dozens of people who reached out and spoke to him after the family’s main car lot had been burned during the first night of the demonstrations.

Defense attorney Corey Chirafisi suggested Khindri could be trying to avoid civil liability from the incident that took place on his family’s property, but Khindri denied those claims.

His brother, Sahil, also testified. He said he was working with a technician when Rittenhouse’s group of friends along with older men carrying weapons entered the Car Source parking lot, the location where Rosenbaum was killed.

Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger asked Sahil Khindri why he didn’t ask the group to leave.

“Not when they’re dressed like that,” Sahil said.

Last week, prosecutors played multiple videos that showed what went down that fiery night in Kenosha more than a year ago. Jurors heard testimony from people who were with Rittenhouse just before and after the shootings, as well as from police officers and the families of the men who died.

Jason Lackowski, a former Marine walking the streets of Kenosha with his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, testified Rosenbaum was acting “belligerently” but said he did not appear to pose a serious threat.

Lackowski testified that Rosenbaum “asked very bluntly to shoot him” and took a few “false steppings … to entice someone to do something” but added that he viewed Rosenbaum more as a “babbling idiot” than a threat and ignored him.

In a possible blow to prosecutors, Rosenbaum’s fiance, Kariann Swart, testified he was on medication for bipolar disorder and depression but hadn’t filled his prescriptions because the Kenosha pharmacy was boarded up due to the protests. The defense could possibly use the testimony to portray Rosenbaum as the aggressor.

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Last week, Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder also dismissed two jurors. One, a middle-aged man on a motorized scooter, for potential bias after he told a crude joke about Kenosha officers killing Jacob Blake Jr., the incident that led to the protests in Kenosha. On Friday, Schroeder also dismissed a pregnant juror who said she wasn’t feeling well. Eighteen jurors remain, 10 women and eight men. Of those, 12 will decide on a verdict.

The case could go to the jury as early as this week, Schroeder said.