4 takeaways from the first week of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial

The first week of testimony has come to a close in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old charged with homicide after he shot and killed two protesters at a demonstration in Kenosha, Wis., in August 2020.

The protests in Kenosha began after police shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, on Aug. 23, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Multiple nights of unrest followed, with rioters destroying police cars and burning and damaging businesses.

On Aug. 25, ahead of the third night of protests, Rittenhouse, then 17, drove from his home in Antioch, Ill., across the state line into Wisconsin, where he intended to "protect" businesses from unrest. He was armed with an AR-15-style rifle.

In a series of confrontations with protesters there, Rittenhouse shot and killed two protesters, Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and wounded a third, Gaige Grosskreutz.

Rittenhouse faces seven total charges, including two counts of homicide, one reckless and one intentional, and two counts of recklessly endangering safety. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The prosecution still has yet to wrap their case. Among the remaining witnesses is Grosskreutz, who is expected to testify Monday.

The defense will take over later next week. Whether Rittenhouse himself will testify — normally common in self-defense cases — is still an open question, in part because there has been so much video evidence of the events.

Closing arguments are expected by the end of the week or sometime in the week of Nov. 15.