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Kyle Rittenhouse is taking the stand Wednesday at his trial on charges of killing two men and wounding a third during a night of turbulent protests in Kenosha.
Rittenhouse was 17 when he went to Kenosha during the summer of 2020 with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle and a medical kit in what he said was an effort to safeguard property from the damaging protests that broke out over the wounding of a Black man by a white Kenosha police officer.
Prosecutors used 5 and a half days of testimony to try to portray Rittenhouse as the aggressor on the night of the shootings. But some of the testimony appeared to bolster his claim of self-defense.
Rittenhouse’s lawyers have suggested he was afraid his gun was going to be taken away and used against him. One of the men he shot hit Rittenhouse in the head or neck with a skateboard, and another came at Rittenhouse with a gun of his own.
Rittenhouse’s decision to testify comes despite several legal experts saying that an underwhelming prosecution case had made it less likely he would need to do so.
Rittenhouse, now 18, could get life in prison if convicted of the most serious charge against him.
