Judge in Kyle Rittenhouse trial bans MSNBC from court after freelance producer pulled over for following jury bus

CNN

By Eric Levenson, Brad Parks, Brian Stelter and Carma Hassan, CNN

A man who identified himself to police as a producer for MSNBC said he was instructed to follow the jury bus after deliberations had ended for the day Wednesday in Kyle Rittenhouse’s homicide trial, Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder told the court Thursday.

Police stopped the man Wednesday night after court because he ran a red light while following the jury bus by a distance of about a block, Schroeder said. The man was ticketed for violating a traffic control signal, but Schroeder said the incident was extremely serious.

The judge said no one from MSNBC will be allowed inside the courthouse for the duration of the trial as the matter is under further investigation.

“This is a very serious matter and I don’t know what the ultimate truth of it is, but absolutely it would go without much thinking that someone who is following the jury bus — that is a very, it’s an extremely serious matter and it will be referred to the proper authorities for further action,” Schroeder said.

LIVE UPDATES: Rittenhouse jury begins day 3 of deliberations

An NBC News spokesperson told CNN’s Brian Stelter the producer was a freelancer and he never intended to contact jurors. The network is cooperating with authorities, the spokesperson said.

“Last night, a freelancer received a traffic citation. While the traffic violation took place near the jury van, the freelancer never contacted or intended to contact the jurors during deliberations, and never photographed or intended to photograph them,” NBC News said in a statement. “We regret the incident and will fully cooperate with the authorities on any investigation.”

The Kenosha Police Department said in a tweet that the investigation remains open and active.

“Last night a person who is alleging to be affiliated with a national media outlet was briefly taken into custody and issued several traffic related citations. Police suspect this person was trying to photograph jurors. This incident is being investigated much further,” police said. “There was no breach of security regarding the jury, nor were there any photographs obtained.

Jury enters third day of deliberations

Despite the incident, the jury in Rittenhouse’s homicide trial began a third day of deliberations on Thursday for five felony charges related to the fatal shooting of two people and the wounding of another during last year’s unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The 12-person jury, made up of five men and seven women, deliberated for about 16 hours combined on Tuesday and Wednesday. They have asked the court a handful of questions so far, including requests to rewatch much of the video evidence of the shootings.

One of those videos, a drone video showing Rittenhouse shooting Joseph Rosenbaum, is at the heart of a defense request for a mistrial in the case. The jury watched that video and FBI surveillance video Wednesday afternoon for 45 minutes in the courtroom.

Prosecutors received a high-definition version of the drone video mid-trial but Rittenhouse’s defense team says it received a compressed, lower-quality version from the prosecution, which described it as a technical glitch. The defense learned about the discrepancy after testimony ended and so asked the judge to declare a mistrial.

The defense has also filed a motion for mistrial with prejudice — meaning the state would not be able to retry Rittenhouse — for intentional “prosecutorial overreach” related to the prosecution’s line of questioning during Rittenhouse’s testimony last week.

Schroeder has not ruled on either motion.

The deliberations come after a two-week trial highlighted by emotional and compelling testimony from Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old at the center of debates around self-defense, gun ownership and Black Lives Matter demonstrations. On the stand, he told jurors — and the viewing public — that he acted in self-defense.

“I didn’t do anything wrong. I defended myself,” he testified.

Rittenhouse is charged with five felonies: first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety. Jurors are also able to consider lesser offenses for two of the five counts. If convicted on the most serious charge, Rittenhouse could face a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

Schroeder dismissed a misdemeanor weapons possession charge and a non-criminal curfew violation prior to deliberations.

The charges stem from the chaotic unrest last year in the wake of the Kenosha police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man. After instances of rioting and fiery destruction, Rittenhouse, 17 at the time, took a medical kit and an AR-15-style rifle and joined up with a group of other armed people in Kenosha on August 25, 2020.

There, Rittenhouse fatally shot Rosenbaum — who was chasing the teenager and threw a bag at him — and then tried to flee. A crowd of people pursued the teenager, and Rittenhouse shot at an unidentified man who tried to kick him; fatally shot Anthony Huber, who had hit him with a skateboard; and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, who was armed with a pistol.

What happened in the trial

Prosecutors called 22 witnesses over the course of six days as they sought to show Rittenhouse acted recklessly that night and provoked Rosenbaum by pointing the rifle at him, setting off the ensuing series of events.

“That is what provokes this entire incident,” Binger said in closing arguments. “When the defendant provokes this incident, he loses the right to self-defense. You cannot claim self-defense against a danger you create.”

The prosecution portrayed the three other people who confronted the teen as “heroes” trying to stop what they believed to be an active shooting. Binger also questioned the teenager’s decision to take a gun into the city in the first place, calling him a “chaos tourist.”

However, on the stand, Rittenhouse testified he acted in self-defense when he shot four times at Rosenbaum, who he said had threatened him earlier, chased him, thrown a bag at him and lunged for his gun. Rittenhouse also referred to the three other people he shot at as part of a “mob” chasing him.

He became emotional and broke down into tears during his testimony as he began to recount the initial shooting, leading to a break in the case.

In closing arguments, defense attorney Mark Richards said Rittenhouse feared for his life when he opened fire.

“Every person who was shot was attacking Kyle. One with a skateboard, one with his hands, and one with his feet, one with a gun,” Richards said. “Hands and feet can cause great bodily harm.”

The trial featured more than a dozen videos from the night that showed what happened before, during and after the shootings. Most of the facts of what happened that night were not up for debate — rather, at the heart of the trial was the analysis of Rittenhouse’s actions and whether they can be considered “reasonable.”

The prosecution faced an uphill challenge in the case because Wisconsin law requires the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Rittenhouse did not act in self-defense. But there are limits to a self-defense claim.

“The defendant may intentionally use force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm only if the defendant reasonably believed that the force used was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself,” the jury instructions explain.

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CNN’s Mike Hayes, Jason Kravarik and Cheri Mossburg contributed to this report.