A juror in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse was dismissed Thursday after a court security officer caught the juror making a joke about the police shooting of Jacob Blake. That shooting led to the protests where Rittenhouse shot three people, killing two and wounding another. The video above shows Judge Bruce Schroeder addressing the juror.
“I was told that while you were being escorted to the car the other day that you began to tell a joke about the shooting of Jacob Blake and I wanted to see, Is that accurate or not,” Schroeder asked the juror. “It’s clear that the appearance of bias is present, and it would seriously undermine the outcome of the case, so that in itself would be sufficient cause for discharge.”
Judge Schroeder asked the juror to repeat his joke, but he refused.
“I suppose his unwillingness can be taken in the worst light,” Rittenhouse attorney Corey Chirafisi said. “So based on the unwillingness at this point, I think [dismissal] is probably the proper course.”
After the juror was dismissed, the Rittenhouse trial continued with the chief video director for the conservative website The Daily Caller taking the stand. Richie McGinniss was filming the protests at the time of the shooting and had interviewed Rittenhouse. The video above also shows some of McGinniss’ testimony. He said he watched Joseph Rosenbaum, one of the three people shot, chase Rittenhouse down.
“I think it was very clear to me that he was reaching specifically for the weapon,” McGinniss said. “He said, `F—- you.′ And then he reached for the weapon.”
McGinniss said as Rosenbaum lunged, Rittenhouse, “kind of dodged around” with his weapon, leveled the gun, and fired.
While McGinniss, whom the prosecution had called, was on the stand, prosecutors focused on the term “lunging”. In a media interview days after the shooting, McGinniss had described Rosenbaum as “falling” in the moments before the shooting, not “lunging”.
“He was lunging, falling. I would use those as synonymous terms in this situation because basically, you know, he threw his momentum towards the weapon,” McGinniss said.
Rittenhouse, who is white, could get life in prison if convicted in the politically and racially polarizing case that has stirred furious debate over self-defense, vigilantism, the right to bear arms and the racial unrest that erupted around the U.S. after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and other cases like it.