A man who suffered a severe arm injury when he was shot by Kyle Rittenhouse during a night of protests against racial injustice is expected to testify this week as prosecutors near the end of their case in Rittenhouse’s murder trial.
Gaige Grosskreutz, 27, who had a gun in his hand as he stepped toward Rittenhouse, was shot in the arm moments after Rittenhouse fatally shot two others in the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Testimony during the first week of Rittenhouse’s trial showed bystanders came to Grosskreutz’s aid and placed a tourniquet on his arm before loading him into a vehicle that rushed him to a hospital.
Rittenhouse, 18, is charged with shooting Grosskreutz and fatally shooting Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber on Aug. 25, 2020. The one-time police youth cadet from Antioch, Illinois, was 17 when he went to Kenosha with an AR-style rifle and a medical kit in what he said was an effort to safeguard property from the demonstrations that broke out over the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white Kenosha police officer.
Rittenhouse is white, as are the three men he shot, but the case has raised polarizing questions about racial justice, policing, firearms and white privilege.