You may not know the name Joshua Ziminski. However, if it wasn’t for him, you also wouldn’t know about Judge Bruce Schroeder, the jurist b...
You may not know the name Joshua Ziminski. However, if it wasn’t for him, you also wouldn’t know about Judge Bruce Schroeder, the jurist behind the bench during the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.
Rittenhouse is done with criminal courtrooms, at least for now. Schroeder still presides there — and one of the defendants appearing before him is Ziminski, whose errant gunshot during the August 2020 riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, set in motion a series of events that brought Rittenhouse and Schroeder to the nation’s attention.
In a reminder that the Rittenhouse saga isn’t over from a legal standpoint, Ziminski got some brutal news from Schroeder: He was re-arrested and had his bond increased from $1,000 to $14,000 after allegations emerged that he had intimidated a photographer outside of court.
And yet, Ziminski isn’t going to get much attention from the establishment media, which has packed up and gone home. His case sheds light on the crumbling narrative the establishment tried to paint, however — and we’ve been pointing out how everyone got the narrative wrong in the Rittenhouse case from Day One.
Ziminski is charged with felony arson and a misdemeanor count of dangerous use of a weapon for his actions on the night of Aug. 25, 2020, according to the Kenosha News. However, during jury selection last week, the News reported, his case “hit a bit of a snag.”
That snag? “Kenosha County Circuit Court records show that Kenosha defense attorney Terry Rose appeared before Judge Bruce Schroeder as jury selection was to begin and reported that his client, Kenosha amateur photographer Nathan DeBruin, had been intimidated by Ziminski.”
DeBruin had testified during Rittenhouse’s trial in November. According to Rose, the photographer’s lawyer, Ziminski yelled at DeBruin as he entered the courthouse and demanded that he produce a photo taken of Ziminski at the riots.
“[DeBruin] was visibly shaken,” Rose said. “I told the judge about it, called it intimidation and asked that Ziminski be penalized by being held in the county jail pending the outcome of the trial.”
Ziminski was re-arrested, according to WDJT-TV, and his bail was hiked to $14,000.
The trial, which had been set to start last Monday, has been moved to March 28, with a pre-trial hearing on Feb. 25. It’s unclear whether Ziminski will face any additional charges for allegedly intimidating DeBruin.
He’s already facing down some pretty hefty charges.
Last January, prosecutors indicted Ziminski for felony arson after video footage on his wife’s phone showed him starting a fire in a dumpster, asking fellow rioters for lighter fluid to help it spread and pushing the dumpster into the road as police vehicles approached. Another video shows Ziminski at the scene of an overturned, burning trailer, “manipulating the fire with his right foot,” according to the criminal complaint.
Ziminski was also identified by police as the man who fired the “warning shot” that caused rioters to seize upon Rittenhouse, believing him to be the shooter.
“Police investigating the shootings identified Ziminski and observed that he was holding a black handgun, according to previously published reports,” the News reported.
“At one point, in a video near the Ultimate Gas Station on the southeast corner of Sheridan Road and 60th Street, Ziminski is seen pointing the gun to the sky, and the police observed a ‘muzzle flash’ and heard a gunshot at the same time.”
According to The Journal Times, Ziminski has several prior convictions, all misdemeanors. These include carrying a concealed weapon and disorderly conduct while armed in 2006, violating a restraining order in 2010 (twice) and a hit-and-run in 2016. In June 2020, he was charged with misdemeanor domestic battery.
At least these aren’t felony convictions. Both of the men Rittenhouse killed on Aug. 25, 2020, had them on their record.
Joseph Rosenbaum, who grabbed for Rittenhouse’s gun, was a convicted child molester. According to Heavy, he also had open misdemeanor cases for battery and disorderly conduct at the time of the riot.
Anthony Huber, who tried to bash Rittenhouse’s head in with a skateboard, was found guilty of strangulation and suffocation, domestic abuse and felony false imprisonment after choking and pulling a knife on his brother.
Gaige Grosskreutz, who was shot by Rittenhouse after pointing a gun at him, survived. He has a long string of arrests and charges.
Kyle Rittenhouse wasn’t arrested once before Aug. 25, 2020. During the riots started by the ilk of the four men listed above, he assisted in cleaning up and protecting the community where he was employed.
The moment his case broke, however, he became a bloodthirsty white supremacist who chose one of those fiery but mostly peaceful protests to shoot justice-loving progressive protesters willy-nilly with an “assault rifle.”
And on top of all that? To get to Kenosha, Rittenhouse — yes, these are shocking details, perhaps too much for the queasy, but I’m obliged to share the grim truth with you, no matter how macabre and triggering the facts are — crossed state lines.
That narrative crumbled before the eyes of anyone who tuned in to the trial. Now, whatever rubble remains of the collapsed edifice is being pulverized by men like Joshua Ziminski.
This is merely an accusation, of course, and if the intimidation case ends in charges, he should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Same with his arson and disorderly conduct charges.
There’s the irony, however: The one person involved in this ugly saga whom the media presumed guilty until proven innocent is the one who’d never faced a solitary criminal charge, much less been convicted of one.
No comments