Yes, that was terrible. First, here's a copy of the photo of their interaction for reference which I found online. There are plenty of copies, including in the tweet referenced by Snopes below if you don't like this one:
ABC: "So here you’re allowed to say whatever you feel like you need to say. So you’re saying you weren’t pointing your gun at him? Is that what you’re saying?”
Grosskreutz: “That’s absolutely what I’m saying, yes.
Problems with this:
* Grosskreutz has a $10M lawsuit against the city over this.
* Grosskreutz' phone was not searched, despite a signed search warrant for the same, due to the DA's personal intervention. Nor was his and only his police interview recorded.
* Grosskreutz has an expired CCL, so was not legally carrying.
* As a side note, the illegal gun charge against Kyle, meanwhile, was dropped. Kyle was not carrying a short-barreled rifle, so Kyle's possession was ruled to be legal under WI's poorly-written laws.
* Grosskreutz lied to the police both about having a gun at all, then later changed his story to dropping it, but was caught on camera in possession of it the entire time.
* The police testified that this is the one and only time they have ever done things that way.
* Grosskreutz testified that he chose to attack because Kyle re-racked his gun. However, this does not happen anywhere in the video of the exchange and no unspent ammo from Kyle's gun was found.
* What was found is an unspent round matching Grosskreutz' glock.
* This implies that Grosskreutz re-racked his gun at some point--something he claims is a threat to kill.
* While that was not seen on camera, this must have happened while he still had two arms.
* Grosskreutz' roommate posted on social media that Grosskreutz regretted not killing Kyle. He later claimed to have been lying when brought to the stand.
In short, ABC put on someone who has changed their story multiple times when confronted with new evidence, who provably lied to the cops that were investigating a murder, and who has $10 million reasons to lie about everything.
This particular exchange has even been fact-checked, so ABC has little excuse for platforming someone they know or should have known to be lying without challenging them:
If I'm not mistaken Lachowski testified that when attending Grosskreutz after being shot he found the glock on the ground and cleared it. There was one in the chamber.
The unspent ammo from the glock comes from Lachowski clearing it. Grosskreutz didn't rerack the gun, but he did have one in the chamber ready to shoot, meaning that he meant to take out Rittenhouse when he advanced before having his bicep blown off.
I don't think I saw that person's testimony, so I'll have to find and review it. Thank you for that. If this is correct, then I would correct my wording from re-racking to racking. You're right that it casts doubt on whether he was not prepared to shoot anyone. After all, why'd he prepare his gun to fire if he wasn't willing to do so?
> If this is correct, then I would correct my wording
You should want to correct it regardless of the outcome of that "if".
The fact is, (a) you are carelessly speculating about details when we are right in the middle of a mess that was caused by rampant speculation—the fact that contradictory testimony and video happens to exist is not what made the claim unkosher—and (b) even if you weren't wrong and were recounting pure facts, you are derailing the discussion.
The reason that no one makes an issue of it is because he did not kill anyone and is therefore not the one on trial. If he had killed someone it is perfectly reasonable to bring this up. (Also as far as I know he did not illegally travel there or am I misunderstanding? )
He lied to the cops, had an expired CCL and was seen carrying on camera. There are quite a few crimes that could have been charged based on what is known.
> * This implies that Grosskreutz re-racked his gun at some point--something he claims is a threat to kill.
It doesn't imply that. It would be nice if, in a thread about the media misreporting the facts of the case and feeding the biases of the folks who are supposed to be benefiting from the coverage, we wouldn't make other assumptions. You might think it's reasonable to make this assumption, but (a) the people leaping to conclusions—many of which turned out to be wrong—and repeating them ad nauseum over the last year also thought their assumptions about Rittenhouse were reasonable, and (b) as it turns out, the source of the ejected round is knowable/known since it was also caught on video (and it wasn't Grosskreutz doing as you said).
[I'm not going to actually delve into the details on that, since as far as I'm concerned this thread is about the meta issues of epistemology in the age of social media echo chambers and the contributions of traditional media to it, and we're best served by staying on that topic and not straying into the details of the case, which provides us a vehicle for the discussion but other than that is really just a tangential third rail.]
I'm basing my opinions on those statements made in open court that were subjected to cross-examination, not random social media nonsense, which is pretty much all there was a year ago when you formed this opinion.
The police said the unspent round did not match Kyle's weapon. It does match the ammo in the Glock.
If you have video evidence of another Glock (EDIT: or any other gun using the same ammo) being racked at the scene, please show it. There were claims previously that it came from Kyle's rifle, but it was not a match and this is attested to by the prosecution's own police witness.
I was not able to locate any other claims for where the unspent round came from after several searches. This makes me wonder if you can actually produce the claimed video evidence of another source of the same ammo.
This is a nonsense sentence. It's not even clear what you're even trying to say here, but it's certain that whatever it is you are making even more bad assumptions about things that you don't actually know to be true.
> please show it [...] I was not able to locate any other claims for where the unspent round came from
It's like you ignored the entire message and homed in on the sweet temptation to muse further about the events of the night of the shooting itself, as if this were exactly the sort of trial-by-Reddit thread that I said I would not take part in here.
After the response you just received, do you really expect that the person who wrote it would meet your challenge, which would require an about-face, throwing everything just said out the window, and willingly contributing to derailing the discussion from the topic at hand?
In other words: no, and furthermore, since you're all over this thread trying to turn it into exactly what it shouldn't be: please stop.
Well, if you don't want to engage in that, don't. Don't claim to have video evidence in your back pocket and then not show it to anyone because you want to shut down other people's discussions. Don't seize on part of my comment and then come back like it's unfair when it happens to you.
This isn't trial by Reddit, this is discussion of the evidence that has been investigated by professional investigators and presented as evidence in open court. The only thing I mentioned that wasn't raised and cross-examined in a court of law was the statement on ABC, by the same person who had said something different under oath just before.
You're the one alluding to some mystery video you won't describe.
You (and by now, others, too) are derailing the thread from the topic at hand by trying to make it one, but no, that's not what this is.
this thread is about the meta issues of epistemology in the age of social media echo chambers and the contributions of traditional media to it, and we're best served by staying on that topic
There is no shortage of places to discuss the night of the Kenosha shooting. This is not one of them.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/290695292964306948/90...
Now here's what Grosskreutz said on the stand:
Corey Chirafisi: Now, you’d agree your firearm is pointed at Mr. Rittenhouse. Correct?
Gaige Grosskreutz: Yes.
CC: Okay. And once your firearm is pointed at Mr. Rittenhouse, that’s when he fires his gun. Yes?
GG: No.
CC: Sir, look, I don’t want to – does this look like right now your arm is being shot?
GG: That looks like my bicep being vaporized, yes.
CC: Okay. And it’s being vaporized as you’re pointing your gun directly at him. Yes?
GG: Yes.
CC: Okay. So when you were standing 3-5 feet from him with your arms up in the air, he never fired. Right?
GG: Correct.
CC: It wasn’t until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him with your gun — now your hands down — pointed at him that he fired. Right?
GG: Correct.
Now compare that to what Grosskreutz said to ABC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oocNVvTHP5M
ABC: "So here you’re allowed to say whatever you feel like you need to say. So you’re saying you weren’t pointing your gun at him? Is that what you’re saying?”
Grosskreutz: “That’s absolutely what I’m saying, yes.
Problems with this:
* Grosskreutz has a $10M lawsuit against the city over this.
* Grosskreutz' phone was not searched, despite a signed search warrant for the same, due to the DA's personal intervention. Nor was his and only his police interview recorded.
* Grosskreutz has an expired CCL, so was not legally carrying.
* As a side note, the illegal gun charge against Kyle, meanwhile, was dropped. Kyle was not carrying a short-barreled rifle, so Kyle's possession was ruled to be legal under WI's poorly-written laws.
* Grosskreutz lied to the police both about having a gun at all, then later changed his story to dropping it, but was caught on camera in possession of it the entire time.
* The police testified that this is the one and only time they have ever done things that way.
* Grosskreutz testified that he chose to attack because Kyle re-racked his gun. However, this does not happen anywhere in the video of the exchange and no unspent ammo from Kyle's gun was found.
* What was found is an unspent round matching Grosskreutz' glock.
* This implies that Grosskreutz re-racked his gun at some point--something he claims is a threat to kill.
* While that was not seen on camera, this must have happened while he still had two arms.
* Grosskreutz' roommate posted on social media that Grosskreutz regretted not killing Kyle. He later claimed to have been lying when brought to the stand.
In short, ABC put on someone who has changed their story multiple times when confronted with new evidence, who provably lied to the cops that were investigating a murder, and who has $10 million reasons to lie about everything.
This particular exchange has even been fact-checked, so ABC has little excuse for platforming someone they know or should have known to be lying without challenging them:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kyle-rittenhouse-gaige-gro...
One wonders if this coverage will ever show up with a "disputed by fact checkers" label on social media?