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A jury was selected in a single day for the homicide trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the young, aspiring police officer who shot three people while they were out on the streets of Kenosha during a protest against racial injustice last year.
Opening statements are set to begin Tuesday morning.
The jury in the politically charged case must decide whether Rittenhouse acted in self-defense, as his lawyers claim, or was engaged in vigilantism when the 17-year-old opened fire with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle in August 2020, killing two men and wounding a third.
In an all-day session that ran well past dark, 20 people — 12 jurors and eight alternates — were selected. The judge said he would decide at the end of the trial which ones are alternates and which ones will deliberate. The 20 consist of 11 women and nine men.
Jurors were not asked to identify their race during the selection process, and the court did not immediately provide a racial breakdown of the group.
Jury selection moved along rapidly, given the sharp polarization caused by the case. About a dozen prospective jurors were dismissed because they had strong opinions about the case or doubts they could be fair.
Rittenhouse had traveled to Kenosha from his home in Illinois during unrest that broke out after a white Kenosha police officer shot 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 now-18-year-old Rittenhouse faces life in prison if convicted of first-degree homicide, the most serious charge against him.
Rittenhouse has been painted by supporters on the right — including foes of the Black Lives Matter movement — as a patriot who took a stand against lawlessness by demonstrators and exercised his Second…
Source : france24
