KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A jury has been selected for the homicide trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the aspiring police officer who gunned down three people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during a protest against racial injustice last year.
It took just one day to pick the jury Monday, despite the turbulent political passions unleashed by the shooting. Rittenhouse killed two people and wounded another.
Opening statements are set to begin Tuesday morning, with the trial expected to last two weeks.
Rittenhouse was 17 when he traveled to Kenosha from his home in Illinois, just across the Wisconsin state line, during unrest that broke out in August 2020 after a white Kenosha police officer shot and wounded Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back. Rittenhouse said he went there to protect property after two previous nights marked by arson, gunfire and the ransacking of businesses.
The jury must decide whether Rittenhouse acted in self-defense, as his lawyers claim, or was engaged in vigilantism when he opened fire with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle.
Rittenhouse, now 18, faces life in prison if convicted of first-degree homicide, the most serious charge against him.