Kenosha

At the direction of Circuit Judge Bruce Schroder, Rittenhouse’s attorney placed slips of paper into a raffle drum with the numbers of each of the 18 jurors on it who sat through the two-week trial. The drum had been sitting on a window ledge throughout the trial but was placed in front of Rittenhouse at the defense table Tuesday.

The case went to the anonymous, 12-member jury after Rittenhouse himself, in an unusual move, was allowed by the judge to draw the numbered slips of paper from a raffle drum that determined which of the 18 people who sat in judgment during the trial would decide his fate and which ones would be dismissed as alternates.

Attorneys in Kyle Rittenhouse's murder trial sparred for the last time Monday during closing arguments, with prosecutors painting Rittenhouse as an inexperienced instigator and defense lawyers insisting the Illinois man fired in self-defense.

A class at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside in Kenosha has been using the Rittenhouse trial as a journalism case study over the past week.

Kyle Rittenhouse provoked bloodshed on the streets of Kenosha by bringing a semi-automatic rifle to a protest and menacing others, and when the shooting stopped, he walked off like a “hero in a Western,” a prosecutor said in closing arguments Monday at Rittenhouse’s murder trial. But Rittenhouse's attorney countered that the shooting started after the young man was ambushed by a “crazy person” that night and became afraid his gun was going to be wrested away and used to kill him.

With legal experts saying prosecutors struggled to counter the Illinois man’s claims of self-defense, the best bet for a conviction looked like the gun charge. But Rittenhouse’s defense team dug up an exception to the prohibition and Judge Bruce Schroeder dismissed the count Monday, just hours before jurors got the case.

Kyle Rittenhouse provoked the bloodshed on the streets of Kenosha by bringing a semi-automatic rifle and menacing others, and when the shooting stopped, he walked away like a “hero in a Western,” a prosecutor said in closing arguments Monday at Rittenhouse’s murder trial.

Closing arguments are set for Monday in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial in Kenosha. The 18-year-old from Illinois is facing charges of homicide and other felonies for fatally shooting Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum, and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz. The incidents took place last year during unrest after a Kenosha police officer severely injured a Black man, Jacob Blake, Jr.

The judge at Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial Monday dismissed a count of possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18, a misdemeanor that had appeared to be among the likeliest of the charges to net a conviction for prosecutors.

Attorneys were set to make closing arguments Monday at Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial in the shootings of three men during street unrest in Wisconsin, the last word before a jury begins deliberating in a case that underscored Americans’ bitter divisions on issues of guns, protests and policing.