The judge in the Kyle Rittenhouse case denied prosecutors’ request to admit evidence at Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial alleging he was associated with the Proud Boys and a video of him allegedly saying he wanted to shoot people.
A motion hearing was held Friday morning in front of Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder.
Schroeder heard arguments from the defense and Kenosha County Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger.
Following the arguments, Schroeder ruled that the two motions filed by Binger were denied.
One of those motions included a video where a person, identified by prosecutors as Rittenhouse, is on the side of a street watching several people leave a CVS Pharmacy.
The motion said that Rittenhouse was watching the group of people leave the CVS while carrying bags and loading them into the trunk of a car. “It looks like one of them has a weapon,” Rittenhouse said, according to the motion.
“Bro, I wish I had my (expletive) AR, I’d start shooting rounds at them,” Rittenhouse reportedly said in the video, which was taken 15 days before the August 25, 2020 protest and shootings.
“[Rittenhouse] apparently believed, with no actual evidence, that these individuals were shoplifting from the store,” Binger said.
The second motion filed by Binger asked the court to admit evidence showing Rittenhouse is affiliated with the Proud Boys.
Surveillance photos showed Rittenhouse posing for pictures at a Wisconsin bar with the leaders of the Proud Boys organization while flashing their “OK” sign, Binger said.
Schroeder said he had “never heard of the Proud Boys before this case.”
“If I admitted these motions they would get reversed… if there was a conviction. There’s no connection between these two events at all,” Schroeder said after ruling against the two motions filed by Binger.
Schroeder also denied a motion filed by Rittenhouse’s attorney Mark Richards that asked the court to allow evidence at trial showing Joseph Rosenbaum, one of the men killed by Rittenhouse, was a sex offender.
Rittenhouse has maintained that the shootings were self-defense after the three victims attacked him.
A jury trial is scheduled for November 1.