‘I Defended Myself,’ Kyle Rittenhouse Tells Jurors in His Homicide Trial
The New York Times
Mr. Rittenhouse testified for hours about the deaths of two men and the shooting of another amid protests in Kenosha, Wis. The judge and prosecutor sparred bitterly over judicial procedure.
KENOSHA, Wis. — Kyle Rittenhouse sobbed and gulped for air on the witness stand as he was asked to describe the moments before he shot three men in the aftermath of demonstrations in Kenosha, Wis. One of them had aggressively chased him into a parking lot, Mr. Rittenhouse testified. The man had lunged at him, he said.
“I remember his hand on the barrel of my gun,” he testified at one point, after the judge called a recess to allow Mr. Rittenhouse — whose mother was also weeping audibly from her row in the courtroom gallery — to compose himself enough to speak.
For much of Wednesday, though, Mr. Rittenhouse, 18, appeared composed, confident and sometimes quizzical through hours of questioning from lawyers in his trial on six criminal counts, including intentional and reckless homicide, reckless endangerment and illegal possession of a firearm.