Opening Arguments Begin In Trial Of Kyle Rittenhouse Who’s Accused of Murder At Kenosha Police Brutality Protest
Despite looking at serious time behind bars, Kyle Rittenhouse seemed bored as he yawned several times during the beginning of his homicide trial, which got underway with opening statements on Tuesday (Oct. 2) in Kenosha, Wisconsin
Rittenhouse, 18, was charged with two counts of homicide. If convicted, he faces life in prison.
He’s accused of fatally shooting two people and wounding a third in 2020. Rittenhouse said he traveled with an assault rifle from his home in Illinois to Kenosha to protect property from people protesting the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake.
Rittenhouse yawned several as lawyers prepared to give opening statements, The New York Post reported. He also couldn’t hold himself back from yawning during the proceedings and the day before at jury selection.
Prosecutors accused Rittenhouse of setting the violence in motion by confronting a man and then shooting him in the back, according to The Associated Press. Rittenhouse’s legal team countered he acted in self-defense when the man tried to grab his gun while others assaulted him.
Dominick Black, who was dating Rittenhouse’s sister, was the first witness. He’s charged with purchasing the rifle for Rittenhouse, who at 17 was too young to legally purchase a weapon.
Black testified that he went to Kenosha with Rittenhouse to protect a car dealership from rioters. He was on the rooftop when Rittenhouse fired his weapon in the street. Black said Rittenhouse told him that “people were trying to kill him.”
Rittenhouse’s supporters say that he’s a patriot who used his Second Amendment gun rights to combat lawlessness.
Although he shot three white people, activists suspect that he’s a racist partly because the demonstrators were protesting police brutality against Black people in a demonstration responding to the shooting of Blake in August 2020, leaving him still in recovery from his wounds and battling paralysis, and George Floyd who was killed in May 2020 by a white former Minneapolis police offer who was later convicted of murder.
