Kyle Rittenhouse watches a television monitor in court on Nov. 12, 2021. (Image © Mark Hertzberg/ZUMA Press Wire/Pool)
The estate of a Wisconsin man who was shot and killed by Kyle Rittenhouse during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest is suing the conservative folk hero in federal court on a litany of claims.
On Aug. 25, exactly three years after the fatal shooting, the estate of Joseph Rosenbaum filed a lawsuit against Rittenhouse, the Kenosha Police Department, several individual Kenosha police officers, and various state agencies. The 48-page lawsuit accuses the defendants of wrongful death, negligence, conspiracy, civil rights violations, First Amendment retaliation, and numerous other constitutional and common law claims.
On the night of Aug. 25, 2020, Rosenbaum was protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse, 17 years old at the time, traveled across state lines with a rifle and shot and killed Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, as well as injuring Gaige Grosskreutz. Rittenhouse, who was tried on two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, testified that he shot the men in self-defense. Jurors agreed, ultimately finding him not guilty on all charges.
The filing, which seeks compensatory damages, alleges that law enforcement more or less allowed armed vigilantes to run amok on the night in question – and that local and county agencies “directly caused” Rosenbaum’s death in concert with Rittenhouse’s bullets.
“During the protests, private citizens took up arms and patrolled the streets of Kenosha, acting as law enforcement agents,” the lawsuit reads. “Many of them had posted racist messages and threatened violence on social media before descending upon Kenosha. They made their plans known to law enforcement agents.”
The filing goes on to make the accusation plain.
“Astonishingly, the Kenosha Police Department, Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department, their supervising officials and police officers, and law enforcement officers from surrounding communities did not treat Defendant Rittenhouse or any of the other armed individuals patrolling the streets as a threat to the safety of themselves or the citizens they were sworn to protect,” the lawsuit goes on. “Instead, the law enforcement Defendants deputized these armed individuals, conspired with them, and ratified their actions by letting them patrol the streets, armed with deadly weapons, to mete out justice as they saw fit.”
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After Rosenbaum was shot and killed by Rittenhouse, Huber and Grosskreutz approached the teenage shooter – attempting to disarm him. Huber, of course, died, while Grosskreutz survived a shot to the arm, the lawsuit notes, using the word “hero” to refer to each.
After the first shots were fired, the federal lawsuit notes, law enforcement “did not limit [Rittenhouse’s] movement in any way” or “stop him from shooting individuals after he started.”
“They did not arrest him, detain him, or question him even after he had killed two people,” the filing continues. “Among other things, the Law Enforcement Defendants directed their curfew order only at people protesting the Law Enforcement Defendants’ own police violence, and not at Defendant Rittenhouse and others, who were supportive of law enforcement.”
Rittenhouse approached police in Wisconsin with his arms up and was allowed to pass freely back to Illinois where he turned himself into law enforcement later that same night. He was held in a juvenile lockup before being extradited to the Badger State on Oct. 30, 2020.
Before his criminal trial, Huber’s father filed a substantially similar conspiracy lawsuit against Wisconsin authorities and Rittenhouse. A federal judge allowed the lawsuit to move forward earlier this year.
The highest-profile of the defendants, for his part, says he is tired of the lawsuits targeting him over the fatal shootings that Kenosha jurors determined were justified by self-defense.
“These lawsuits are making it harder and harder for me to move on with my life,” Rittenhouse told a far-right blog in response to the Rosenbaum estate’s lawsuit. “It is extremely difficult to go outside without fear of being harassed or assaulted because of the lies spread in these lawsuits. No one should have to continue to defend the fact that they acted in self defense.”
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