Joseph Rosenbaum

"If I catch any of you guys alone tonight, I'm going to fucking kill you!" -Joseph Rosenbaum threatening Ryan Balch shortly before the shooting

## Joseph Rosenbaum

### Relatives

Johnny Cardwell - father
Regina Rosenbaum - mother
Three brothers
Two sisters
A fiancée
A daughter

**Joseph Donald Rosenbaum**, also known as "**Jo Jo**" and "**Powder**" (1985 - August 26, 2020) was a protester and rioter who attempted to disarm Kyle Rittenhouse.

## Background

### Early life

Joseph was born in Waco, Texas. Sources differ on the exact birthdate, but Joseph was 36 years old at the time of his death. His father, who died in 2002, left the family shortly after his birth. His stepfather was noted to have been physically abusive, while his mother was on the run for a forging charge and as such, Joseph spent his early childhood constantly moving through Texas and southern Arizona, typically staying with extended maternal family. She finally turned herself in to the authorities and handed Joseph and his five siblings over to CPS when he was 13 years old. He mostly lived in various homeless shelters, living most of his teenage years on the streets, committing petty crimes, occasional robbery and theft from his workplace at a fast food restaurant. He was known to be a juvenile offender, regularly getting in trouble at his seldom attended school, once stabbing a teacher with a pencil during a Special Ed class, and generally being known as a thrill seeking offender, which was partially ascribed to a later diagnosed bipolar disorder.

### Criminal record

Around the age of 11, he began using narcotics, starting out with marijuana before he began using hard drugs, such as methamphetamine, LSD, cocaine and heroin, but went clean when he was 16. Joseph was also a violent sex offender, having molested five pre-teen boys, ages 9 to 11, who he reportedly threatened into silence, at age 18 and masturbated in front of a 15-year-old sometime later. A mother testified that her son had received burn marks from Joseph during one of the assaults. Joseph himself had previously been victim to systematic, near daily sexual abuse by an unspecified male relative spanning from age 10 to 13.

From 2003 to 2013, Joseph served a ten year sentence in an Arizona penitentiary following plea deal for his eleven convictions, where he was belligerent with staff and racked up numerous infractions for disobedience and obstruction. He was released with lifetime parole and had an outstanding misdemeanor for domestic violence before his death.

On the day of the shooting, Joseph was released from a medical center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after being hospitalized following a suicide attempt and was actually carrying a provisions bag from the clinic when he joined the protests in Kenosha. He had rented out a motel room there, but had been living in a tent outside of a fast food restaurant for the last few weeks. Joseph was off his prescription for some time due to the ongoing protests and had become increasingly erratic, his suicide attempt, having been his second that month, stemming from a violent outburst during which he attacked his fiancée over an argument about pornography she found on his computer. He had no known ties to the BLM movement, but did mingle with a group of protesters, some of whom would take part in acts of vandalism and looting, who had loose affiliations with BLM and similar organizations.

### Kenosha shooting and death

Joseph participated in civil unrest during the Kenosha protests in 2020, setting a dumpster on fire and shouting threats at armed counter protesters. At around 11:45 p.m., Joseph and a group of other rioters spotted Rittenhouse around a parking lot and threw his bag, filled with clothing and hygienic articles, at him. Upon hearing a member of the crowd directing the others to kill him, Rittenhouse attempted to deter an approaching Joseph from coming closer by pointing his rifle at him. Joseph did not desist and instead grabbed for Rittenhouse's gun, the struggle ending with Joseph being fatally shot four times in the torso.

At the time of his death, Joseph had a three year old daughter and a fiancée, Kariann Swart, who later set up a fundraising campaign to cover Joseph's funeral expenses.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/kyle-rittenhouse-trial-takeaways.html
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://heavy.com/news/joseph-rosenbaum/
3. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenosha\_unrest\_shooting