One of the three men shot in self-defense by Kyle Rittenhouse during a Kenosha riot in 2020 is now suing the then-teenage shooter and city officials for various damages since accrued.
Gaige Grosskreutz’s attorneys filed a suit seeking recompense for “damages for emotional distress, humiliation, loss of enjoyment of life, and other pain and suffering on all claims,” Fox News reported. Grosskreutz got off lucky that night; the two other men shot were fatally injured after attacking the now-20-year-old Rittenhouse in the burning Wisconsin city.
The lawsuit was filed on February 14th and contends that several police departments were responsible for the eventual shooting because it didn’t label people like Rittenhouse as a threat.
“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 said.
“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,” the lawsuit added.
It’s an interesting legal question, and pretty vague because it could be applied to everyone. If this suit somehow wins on merit of argument, does that mean we could all sue blue-state governors for their mishandling of either the BLM riots or Covid pandemic? No doubt plenty of people could cite, as GrossKreutz does, “emotional distress” and “loss of enjoyment of life.”
Rittenhouse famously evaded the frightening mob in Kenosha. In 2021, a statement from his attorneys described the harrowing moments leading up to and resulting in the shooting of three would-be assailants.
Rittenhouse was defending a car dealership when, “[u]pon the sound of a gunshot behind him, Kyle turned and was immediately faced with an attacker lunging towards him and reaching for his rifle. He reacted instantaneously and justifiably with his weapon to protect himself, firing and striking the attacker,” a 2021 statement from his attorneys said.
“In fear for his life and concerned the crowd would either continue to shoot at him or even use his own weapon against him, Kyle had no choice but to fire multiple rounds towards his immediate attackers, striking two, including one armed attacker,” the law firm added.
The Daily Wire wrote about how Grosskreutz admitted to “pointing a gun at Rittenhouse” during the 2021 trial.
Grosskreutz admitted to pointing a gun at Rittenhouse when he testified at the latter’s trial in 2021. Rittenhouse, who was charged with murder after fatally shooting two men and injuring Grosskreutz, was found not guilty in November 2021 following a contentious trial.
On August 25, 2020, when Rittenhouse was 17, he and others armed with rifles began patrolling downtown Kenosha in order to protect a used car dealership from the looting and vandalism taking place during the riots in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man, by a white police officer.
He was found not guilty on all charges.
Featured image: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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