Witness: Kenosha victim was belligerent but no threat

The first man shot and killed by Kyle Rittenhouse on the streets of Kenosha was acting “belligerently” that night but did not appear to pose a serious threat to anyone, a witness testified Friday at Rittenhouse's murder trial.

Kyle Rittenhouse looks back as Susan Hughes, the great aunt of Anthony Huber, enters the courtroom during his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. Anthony Huber was one of two men who Rittenhouse killed on Aug. 25, 2020. [Photo: Sean Krajacic/The Kenosha News via AP, Pool]

Jason Lackowski, a former Marine who said he took an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to Kenosha last year to help protect property during violent protests against racial injustice, said that Joseph Rosenbaum “asked very bluntly to shoot him” and took a few “false steppings ... to entice someone to do something.”

Lackowski got up from the witness stand and demonstrated what he meant by “false stepping.” He took a small step and slight lurch forward, then stopped.

But Lackowski, who was called as a witness by the prosecution, said he considered Rosenbaum a “babbling idiot” and turned his back and ignored him. He admitted he didn’t see everything that went on between Rittenhouse and Rosenbaum, including their final clash.

In other testimony, the prosecution suffered a potential blow when Rosenbaum’s fiancee, Kariann Swart, disclosed that he was on medication for bipolar disorder and depression but didn't fill his prescriptions because the local pharmacy was boarded up as a result of the unrest — information Rittenhouse's lawyers could use in their bid to portray Rosenbaum as the aggressor that night.

The judge allowed the defense to elicit testimony about Rosenbaum's mental illness because prosecutors brought up mention of medication. Had prosecutors not touched on the topic, it is unlikely the judge would have let the defense bring it up.

On the day he was killed, Rosenbaum had been released from a Milwaukee hospital. The jury was told that much, but not why he had been admitted — after a suicide attempt.

Rittenhouse, 18, is charged with shooting three men, two fatally, in the summer of 2020. The one-time police youth cadet 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 were those he shot.

Prosecutors have portrayed Rittenhouse as the instigator of the bloodshed, while his lawyer has argued that he acted in self-defense, suggesting among other things that Rittenhouse feared his weapon would be taken away and used against him.

On Thursday, witnesses testified that a “hyperaggressive” Rosenbaum angrily threatened to kill Rittenhouse that night and that Rosenbaum was gunned down after he chased Rittenhouse and lunged for the young man's rifle.

A state crime lab DNA analyst testified Friday that she tested swabs from the barrel guard from Rittenhouse's rifle and did not find DNA from Rosenbaum or the other man killed that night, Anthony Huber. But Amber Rasmussen said she received no swabs from the actual barrel and would have no way of knowing if Rosenbaum touched it.

Under cross-examination by Rittenhouse attorney Corey Chirafasi, Rasmussen was shown still images of Huber and Rittenhouse and agreed they appeared to depict Huber touching the rifle. She also acknowledged that the absence of Huber’s DNA on the gun doesn't mean he didn't touch it.

In other testimony Friday, a Kenosha officer said that because of the chaos after the shooting and other gunfire that night, police didn't realize Rittenhouse was the gunman as he approached a police vehicle.