- A jury acquitted
Kyle Rittenhouse of homicide charges Friday after he shot three people, two of them fatally, during civil unrest in August 2020. - The three-week trial brought evidence that persuaded jurors Rittenhouse acted in self-defense.
When prosecutors in Kenosha, Wisconsin, first brought homicide charges against Kyle Rittenhouse, many observers of the case thought the facts were cut and dry.
Rittenhouse brought an AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle to a night of civil unrest on August 25, 2020, that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse shot and killed two men, Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum, and injured a third, Gaige Grosskreutz, that night. He returned to his home in Antioch, Illinois, after the shootings, and his mother drove him to the police station in his hometown hours later.
Then on Friday, after nearly 26 hours of deliberations over four days, a jury acquitted Rittenhouse of all charges. The evidence and testimony presented in court over the course of two weeks, when taken together with what jurors weren't permitted to see at trial, explain how Rittenhouse's argument that he shot the men in self-defense won out:
The prosecution's witnesses bolstered Rittenhouse's self-defense narrative
Rittenhouse's attorneys argued that the teenager reasonably feared for his life when he shot and killed Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum, and injured Gaige Grosskreutz.
Several witnesses who saw the killings testified that Rosenbaum was acting belligerently, threatened Rittenhouse, chased him down a street, and lunged for his rifle. Grosskreutz himself conceded that he pointed his own gun at Rittenhouse, believing he was running after an active shooter.
Videos showed that Rittenhouse was being chased
The defense narrative was further bolstered by videos from the protest showing that Huber and Grosskreutz ran after Rittenhouse after the teenager shot Rosenbaum. Rittenhouse's attorneys argued that was additional evidence that he was acting in self-defense.
Rittenhouse took the stand
It's unusual for a criminal defendant to testify in their own criminal case. The US Constitution allows people to avoid testifying, and defendants rarely want to risk folding under cross-examination. But Rittenhouse did it anyway.
In emotional testimony, he said he came to Kenosha because he worked there, his father lived there, and he felt like he was part of the community. He said he wanted only to offer medical help to anyone who might need it in the chaos of the protests, and that he brought his gun only for a situation where he might need it to defend himself. Breaking down in tears, he described being chased by Rosenbaum and then shooting him.
A drone video that was key to prosecutors' case was hard to parse
Late in the trial, prosecutors showed the jury a video clip of the moments leading up to the Rosenbaum shooting, saying it proved that Rittenhouse had been initial aggressor who provoked Rosenbaum first. The video had been taken from a drone roughly a block away.
Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger told jurors the video showed Rittenhouse raising his rifle and pointing it at two associates of Rosenbaum: Joshua and Kelly Ziminski. Binger said the action made Rosenbaum begin chasing Rittenhouse. But Rittenhouse's hands and gun were difficult to see in the drone footage, and jurors may not have been convinced by the argument.
Rittenhouse's attorneys argued that the video didn't show Rittenhouse raising his rifle, but they also requested a mistrial over the footage, saying prosecutors improperly gave them a blurrier, lower-quality version. Had they seen the higher-quality video sooner, they would have adjusted their defense strategy, the Rittenhouse lawyers said. Their mistrial motion was rendered moot by the jury's acquittal on Friday.
The jury couldn't consider videos of Rittenhouse talking about guns
Schroeder refused to allow prosecutors to show the jury unflattering videos of Rittenhouse, even as prosecutors argued they offered "crucial insight" into the teenager's state of mind — a crucial element for homicide charges — and proved he viewed himself as a vigilante.
The first video, as Insider's Michelle Mark reported, depicted Rittenhouse punching a girl. The second showed hooded people clutching items while rushing out of a CVS pharmacy; Rittenhouse's voice could be heard saying, "Bro, I wish I had my fucking AR. I'd start shooting rounds at them."
Jurors couldn't look at photos of Rittenhouse hanging out with far-right figures, either
Rittenhouse has become something of a hero to Republican lawmakers and right-wing media figures, who say he was justified in killing anti-racism protesters.
Prosecutors wanted to present photos of Rittenhouse hanging out with members of the Proud Boys, an extremist group with members that also participated in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Rittenhouse wore a shirt that said "Free as Fuck" and flashed a hand gesture commonly used to signify "white power." Rittenhouse's defense attorneys said Rittenhouse hadn't known the men or what the hand symbol meant, and the judge barred prosecutors from using the photos at trial.
The judge said it was OK for Rittenhouse to have an AR-15 style gun
One of the charges prosecutors brought against Rittenhouse was for possessing a dangerous weapon while under the age of 18. Close to the end of the trial, Schroeder dismissed that particular charge.
The relevant Wisconsin statute forbids people under 18 years old from possessing short-barreled guns, Schroeder ruled, but the military-style weapon that Rittenhouse carried the night of the shootings, when he was 17 years old, was long-barreled. (Schroeder criticized the law as poorly written as he issued his ruling.)