Kyle Rittenhouse took the stand at his murder trial earlier Wednesday and said he was under attack when he shot three men during a night of turbulent protests in Kenosha. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I defended myself,” he said.
The 18-year-old Rittenhouse sobbed so hard at one point that the judge declared a break. But otherwise, he was composed on the stand, even as he was being cross-examined so aggressively that the judge berated the chief prosecutor with the jury out of the room.
Rittenhouse is on trial on charges of killing two men and wounding a third during unrest that erupted in the summer of 2020 over the wounding of a Black man by a white Kenosha police officer.
He could get life in prison if convicted of the most serious charges against him.
Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, went to Kenosha with an AK-style semi-automatic weapon and a medic bag in what he said was an attempt to protect property from rioters who had set fires and ransacked businesses in the two preceding nights.
