Sole survivor of Kyle Rittenhouse gives tearful testimony describing the moment he was shot

Kenosha County prosecutors’ star witness Gaige Grosskreutz lied to police officers in his statement by omitting the fact that he had a Glock in his hand when he was shot by Kyle Rittenhouse.

This was one of several allegations made by defense attorney Corey Chirafisi as he attempted to undermine the witness’s credibility during a fierce cross examination Monday morning.

Jurors at the trial were shown graphic video of the devastating injury sustained by Gaige Grosskreutz when he was shot by Kyle Rittenhouse August 25, 2020. 

The images were screened to a hushed court and clearly showed Grosskreutz grimacing and screaming in agony while he cradled his right arm – his right bicep almost entirely blown away having been shot at close range by Rittenhouse.

Grosskreutz took the stand Monday morning.

In often emotional testimony the clearly harrowed Grosskreutz told the jury how he pulled his own gun because he thought Rittenhouse was an ‘active shooter’ having witnessed him shoot at two men in front of him – killing one – and on learning that he had already shot another man.

But in the moments before he was shot, he said he raised his arms in surrender only for Rittenhouse to ‘re-wrack’ his AR-15 and fire on him. 

Grosskreutz is the sole survivor of the three men shot by Rittenhouse that night.   

Grosskreutz is the sole survivor of the three men shot by Rittenhouse that night 

Defense attorney Corey Chirafisi said Grosskreutz lied to police officers in his statement by omitting the fact that he had a Glock in his hand when he was shot

The court was shown images of the shooting that clearly showed Grosskreutz grimacing and screaming in agony while he cradled his right arm

Chirafisi revealed to the court that Grosskreutz has filed a civil suit against Kenosha City for $10million as well as a federal lawsuit and that he fails to mention that he himself was carrying a firearm in either document.

‘You stand a better chance of getting $10million bucks if Mr Rittenhouse is convicted don’t you?’ Chirafisi hectored.

Reading from Grosskreutz’s original police statement made on August 26, Chirafisi said, ‘You said, ‘I told multiple officers that I dropped my firearm.’ You didn’t drop your firearm. You were chasing Mr Rittenhouse with your gun [drawn] right?’

Throughout direct examination Grosskreutz had been portrayed as a non-partisan participant, there only to administer medical aid.

Under cross-examination Chirafisi drew an admission that he has affiliations with a group called The People’s Revolution and played footage during which Grosskreutz can be heard telling Rittenhouse and his fellow ‘militia’ medics, ‘You can go home. F***ing stooge.’

Grosskreutz claimed that he did not ‘purposefully’ omit the information that he was armed and blamed it on the fact that he had just come out of surgery, had been sedated, was on pain medication and had just undergone ‘the most traumatic experience’ of his life ‘physically and emotionally.’

Chirafisi was not satisfied, ‘You understand it’s the only information you appear ot have forgotten – that puts you with a gun directly in front of him.’

Where the state had sought to portray Grosskreutz as a co-operative witness Chirafisi presented a very different image to the court.

Under cross examination Grosskreutz admitted that he did not give permission for officers to look through his cell phone, failed to mention that he had been carrying a gun when questioned the day after the shooting and refused to answer homicide detectives’ questions on the advice of his lawyer when re-interviewed in September 24.

In a striking moment, Chirafisi showed pictures of the moment that he was shot and elicited Grosskreutz’s agreement when he said, ‘You would agree that when you were three to five feet from him [Rittenhouse], with your hands in the air, he didn’t fire did he?

‘It wasn’t until you were advancing on him with your gun pointed at him that he fired?’

Grosskreutz responded, ‘Correct.’

Questioned by Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger, Grosskreutz recalled, ‘I thought I was going to die,’ and told how he watched Rittenhouse re-wrack his weapon and take aim at him as he approached him

Images of Grosskreutz’s injuries on the night of the riot were shown to the jury on Monday 

Questioned by Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger, Grosskreutz recalled, ‘I thought I was going to die,’ and told how he watched Rittenhouse re-wrack his weapon and take aim at him as he approached him.

He said, ‘I put my hands up and then the defendant essentially re-wracked…in my mind it meant that the defendant had pulled the trigger while my hands were in the air, but the gun didn’t fire so he was re-wracking.’

Moments earlier Grosskreutz who had been livestreaming events had jogged alongside Rittenhouse, drawn to the commotion and gunshots.

‘What did you do?’ he asked the younger man. Grosskreutz told the court that he misheard Rittenhouse’s response thinking he said, ‘I’m working with the police. I didn’t do anything.’

In fact, Rittenhouse had said, ‘I’m going to the police.’

Grosskreutz said, ‘I found it odd and noteworthy…I thought the defendant was an active shooter.’

Asked why he didn’t shoot first when faced with Rittenhouse taking aim, Grosskreutz said, ‘I was trying to preserve my own life but doing so while taking the life of another is not something that I’m capable of comfortable of doing.

‘It goes against my lifelong ethical code that I’ve lived by in regard to medicine.

‘That’s not the kind of person that I am. That’s not why I was there. It’s not somebody I would want to become.’

The court heard that Grosskreutz is an experience and qualified paramedic and saw images of him in action that night administering aid

Earlier Grosskreutz had told the court that he was at the protests that night to administer medical aid – the same reason that Rittenhouse has given for his presence at the protests that night.

Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger was at pains to cast him in a very different light from Rittenhouse.

Jurors at the Kenosha shooter’s trial heard jolting audio of the first four shots fired by Kyle Rittenhouse on the night of August 25, 2020

Binger cast Grosskreutz as the real deal as opposed to Rittenhouse, a wannabe fantasist who falsely claimed to be an EMT and absurdly wore the same pair of latex gloves at all times counter to all hygiene protocols.

The court heard that Grosskreutz is an experience and qualified paramedic and saw images of him in action that night administering aid.

They saw footage of him treating a young girl who had been struck by a rubber bullet and showing protesters how to correctly irrigate eyes irritated by tear gas.

Grosskreutz told the court that he had attended approximately 75 protests in the days since George Floyd’s death with the sole intention of providing medical assistance to anyone in need.

The jury heard that he had equipped himself that night with a medical kit that included a tourniquet, ‘quick clot’ gauze, chest wound seals and saline spray as well as wearing a hat with the word ‘Paramedic’ written across the front.

He also armed himself.

Asked about his decision to bring a gun Grosskreutz said, ‘I believe in the Second Amendment, I’m for people’s right to carry and bear arms and that night was no different from any other day. It’s keys, phone, wallet, gun.’

He admitted that his license to carry a concealed weapon had expired and he had not renewed it but that he had holstered his loaded Gen 4 Glock 27 in the small of his back.

Grosskreutz told the court that he required a week of intensive medical care He was medevacked out of Kenosha’s local hospital to hospital in Milwaukee that night where he underwent several surgeries to clean the wound and attempt to repair the damage.

He told the court that aside from the obvious loss of tissue and difficulty lifting things he had lost sensation on his inner arm from his right elbow down to his thumb.

He also told the court that he had a tattoo that remained almost in tact. He said, ‘It an image of a pretty prominent symbol in the healthcare field – the snake wrapped around the staff and there’s a banner on the top that says, ‘Do No Harm.’

‘There was a banner on the bottom that said, ‘Do Know Harm.’

Jason Lackowski was the first witness to take the stand Friday on the fourth day of Rittenhouse’s trial

Daily Caller Chief Video Director Richie McGinniss (pictured) took the witness stand Thursday morning as a prosecution witness. He claimed Rittenhouse victim Joseph Rosenbaum ‘lunged towards the muzzle’ of Rittenhouse’s gun in the moment the teen levelled it towards him and shot

Today comes after days of testimony last week that saw several prosecution witnesses take the stand. 

Jason Lackowski was the first witness of the fourth day of the trial and is an army veteran who traveled to Kenosha to ‘protect property.’

Questioned by Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger, Lackowski, who was armed with an AR-15, a knife and CS canisters that night, said that Rittenhouse’s first victim Joseph Rosenbaum asked him to shoot him several times.

Lackowski said, ‘He said ‘Shoot me,’ and used more explicit language than that.

‘He had been acting very belligerently. He had asked people very bluntly to shoot him. He did what I would call, ”false-stepping” to incite someone.’

On Binger’s request, Lackowski rose to demonstrate ‘false-stepping’ to the jurors. He lurched forward from a standing start, in a jarring movement and with his chest puffed out, then simply stepped back.

Despite this, Lackowski said he did not consider Rosenbaum a credible threat to him or anyone else. Instead, he turned his back on him and walked away.

Lackowski was the second prosecution witness whose testimony about Rosenbaum’s aggressive behavior and the chaos of the night seems only to add weight to the defense’s case that Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense when he shot first him, Huber and Grosskreutz.

Rittenhouse fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum (left), 36, with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle after Rosenbaum chased Rittenhouse across a parking lot and threw a plastic bag at him shortly before midnight on August 25, 2020. Moments later, as Rittenhouse was running down a street, he shot and killed Anthony Huber (right), 26, a protester from Silver Lake, Wisconsin

On Thursday the court heard from key witness, Daily Caller Chief Video Director Richie McGinniss, who described how Rosenbaum had ‘lunged’ for Rittenhouse’s gun having pursued him into a row of parked cars and what appeared to be ‘something of a dead end.’

McGinniss painted a compelling picture of the sporadic violence of the night as well as Rosenbaum’s erratic and ‘menacing’ behavior. And he refused to cede to Binger’s assertion that the dead man was already falling forward when Rittenhouse shot.

Under increasingly testy direct examination that at times seemed more like a cross-examination of a hostile witness, McGinniss insisted that Rosenbaum was gaining ground on Rittenhouse when he ‘lunged forward’ and attempted to grab the teen’s weapon.

He said that Rosenbaum may have been unable to stop himself from falling face down because of the shot, but would not agree that he had witnessed Rosenbaum fall before the first shot was fired