Witness says the first man Kyle Rittenhouse shot had lunged for the teenager's gun

• A witness testified Thursday that the first man Kyle Rittenhouse shot had lunged for his gun.
• The testimony is crucial to both the prosecution and the defense, since the shooting was not clearly captured on video.

A witness who saw Kyle Rittenhouse shoot the first of three men in Kenosha in August 2020 testified Thursday that the man, Joseph Rosenbaum, had lunged for Rittenhouse's gun.

Richie McGinniss, the video director for the conservative news website The Daily Caller, had been filming and interviewing people on the evening of August 25, 2020, while civil unrest and racial justice protests were consuming downtown Kenosha. McGinniss said he interviewed the then-17-year-old Rittenhouse just 14 minutes before the first deadly shooting.

Unlike the shootings of Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz, Rosenbaum's shooting was not clearly captured on video. As the most detailed account to date of the Rosenbaum shooting, McGinniss' testimony was crucial to both the prosecution and the defense.

Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty in the shootings of Rosenbaum, Huber, and Grosskreutz, saying he opened fire in self-defense because all three men were pursuing him.

McGinniss testified that just before the first shooting, he had been running just behind Rosenbaum, who he said was chasing Rittenhouse into the parking lot of a car dealership.

Rittenhouse "entered a bit of a dead end" and turned to face Rosenbaum, pointing his AR-15 rifle downward at roughly a 45-degree angle, McGinniss said.

Rosenbaum took a "low" and "athletic" position, then lunged forward and reached toward the barrel of Rittenhouse's gun, he continued. McGinniss said he could not see whether Rosenbaum's hands actually made contact with the weapon, because Rosenbaum's body was blocking his view.

But McGinniss said he saw Rittenhouse sweep the barrel of his rifle out of Rosenbaum's reach, then pull the trigger while Rosenbaum was still lunging forward.

Rosenbaum lunged for Rittenhouse's gun, according to McGinniss

At one point, during the cross-examination by Rittenhouse's defense attorney, McGinniss stood up and performed a reenactment of Rosenbaum's movements.

Demonstrating what he saw, McGinniss crouched down, then charged forward and extended his hands outwards and slightly downwards in a grabbing motion.

"It was very clear to me that he was reaching specifically for the weapon, because that's where his hands went," McGinniss said. "The rifle was lower than where [Rosenbaum's] hands were, so [Rosenbaum's] hands were going down… Kyle Rittenhouse dodged around it, and then leveled the weapon, and fired."

The assistant district attorney, Thomas Binger, tried several times during McGinniss' testimony to clarify whether Rosenbaum was "lunging" or "falling" when Rittenhouse opened fire.

Binger played a video clip of Fox News' Tucker Carlson interviewing McGinniss about the evening, in which McGinniss used both terms to describe Rosenbaum's movements.

McGinniss clarified that he thought "lunging" and "falling" were synonymous terms.

"[Rosenbaum's] momentum was going forward… he lunged and the shot was fired as he was lunging," McGinniss said.

Binger also asked whether McGinniss felt endangered by Rittenhouse's presence or actions. McGinniss demurred, responding that he had felt endangered by the presence of multiple armed people and the general atmosphere that evening.

McGinniss conceded that he had never attended a protest where a medic - which is how Rittenhouse had described himself - had been wielding an AR-15.

"In my mind, I couldn't think of a situation that would necessitate someone running through a street with one hand occupying a fire extinguisher and one arm handling an AR-15," McGinniss said.