WATCH: Judge Clears Courtroom to Allow Rittenhouse Jury to Review Grosskreutz Video Evidence

Judge Bruce Schroeder ordered his Kenosha County courtroom cleared of everyone but the jury on Wednesday afternoon, to allow them to review selected video evidence in their deliberations over the murder trial of 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse.

Earlier, prosecutors and defense lawyers had argued over how many times the jury would be allowed to watch the footage. The jury specifically asked for video involving the shooting of Gaige Grosskreutz, who was the last of three people that Rittenhouse shot during the Aug. 25, 2020 melée at a Black Lives Matter riot in the city. In his testimony, Grosskreutz admitted that Rittenhouse had not fired his rifle at him until he himself had drawn a pistol and pointed it at Rittenhouse.

It was not clear why jurors wanted to view that specific video. The Grosskreutz shooting was, observers said, the clearest case of self-defense in the three shootings for which Rittenhouse had been charged, because of the admission of the witness.

Throughout the day, the prosecution and defense lawyers argued over a different video — specifically, drone footage of the first altercation, in which Rittenhouse shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum as he charged him and allegedly reached for the rifle. Defense attorneys argued that they had an altered version of the video, with lower resolution, and moved for a mistrial on that basis. The prosecution said the difference in video quality had been an inadvertent compression error, not deliberate.

Judge Schroeder warned everyone in the courtroom, except Court TV, not to leave their electronic devices in the room, or they would be confiscated permanently. He also told the jurors they could watch the video as many times as they wanted.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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