One of three men shot by Kyle Rittenhouse during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin — and the only survivor — said he thought Rittenhouse was an active shooter and that he was going to die.
Gaige Grosskreutz, a protestor and volunteer medic who was wounded by Rittenhouse during the racial unrest last summer, testified Monday that he was pointing his own gun at Rittenhouse when the teen shot him.
‘I thought the defendant was an active shooter,’ Grosskreutz said.
When asked what was going through his mind in that moment, as the then 17-year-old Rittenhouse advanced toward him while ‘re-racking’ his AR-15 to potentially open fire, Grosskreutz said: ‘That I thought I was going to die.’
Rittenhouse shot Grosskreutz in the arm, tearing away much of the 27-year-old’s bicep, or ‘vaporized’ it, as the witness put it.
Grosskruetz told the jury that despite drawing his own pistol, he did not intend to shoot Rittenhouse.
‘I do know that I was never trying to kill the defendant. That was never something I was trying to do,’ he said, according to Insider. ‘In that moment I was trying to preserve my own life. But doing so while taking the life of another is not something I am capable of or comfortable doing.’
Grosskreutz said he had his hands raised as he closed in on Rittenhouse, who he was hoping to disarm.
Prosecutor Thomas Binger asked Grosskreutz why he didn’t shoot first, to which he replied: ‘That’s not the kind of person that I am. That’s not why I was out there. It’s not who I am. And definitely not somebody I would want to become.’
Grosskreutz had gone to the protest in Kenosha to serve as a volunteer medic, wearing a hat that said ‘paramedic’ and carrying medical supplies, in addition to a loaded pistol.
His permit to carry a concealed weapon had expired and he did not have a valid permit that night.
‘I believe in the Second Amendment. I’m for people’s right to carry and bear arms,’ he said, explaining why he was armed.
After seeing Rittenhouse kill a man just feet away — the second person Rittenhouse fatally shot that night — he sprung into action. While he denied chasing Rittenhouse, he said he was concerned about his safety seeing other chase him and someone try to kick him.
Rittenhouse, now 18, is on trial on charges of killing two men and wounding Grosskreutz.
Rittenhouse, an aspiring police officer had gone to Kenosha with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle and a medical kit in what he said was an effort to safeguard property from the damaging demonstrations that broke out over the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white Kenosha police officer.
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