As if things couldn’t get any worse for the prosecutors in the Kyle Rittenhouse case, they used an image from Patrick Swayze’s “Road House” in Monday’s closing arguments with overlayed text that read: “The Defendant brought a gun to a fistfight.”
Thomas Binger, Kenosha County Assistant DA, displayed the image, which portrayed Swayze’s character Dalton with his fists up in a fighting stance, facing toward his rival Jimmy, who was played by Marshall Teague.
In effort to defend his image choice for his slide, Binger said: “What you don’t do is you don’t bring a gun to a fistfight. What the defendant wants you to believe is that because he’s the one who brought the gun, he gets to kill.”
After comparing the plot of the movie “Road House” to the very situation that landed Rittenhouse under the thumb of the law, Binger furthered his argument: “You lose the right to self-defense when you’re the one that brought the gun, when you’re the one creating the danger, when you’re the one provoking other people.”
The reference to the movie was an obvious stretch to those looking on, some of whom took to twitter to share their opinions. “Using a scene from the movie ‘Roadhouse’ to bolster your case is probably not a good strategy,” said one. “When the prosecution uses a photo of Patrick Swayze from Roadhouse, you are watching a circus,” quipped another.