Kyle Rittenhouse broke down crying in court today (10 November) as he gave evidence about the moments leading up to him shooting three men during protests last year.
The 18-year-old told the jury that before he shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, he was threatened twice by the man.
Recalling the moment, Rittenhouse said: "He screamed 'if I catch any of you f****** alone, I'm going to f****** kill you'.
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"The second time he said 'I'm going to cut your f****** hearts out and kill you N-words'."
Rittenhouse, who was 17 when the incident took place, is charged with killing two men and wounding a third with an assault-style rifle during the summer of 2020.
The one-time aspiring police officer travelled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, from his home in Illinois, after protests broke out over the shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, by a white Kenosha police officer.
Rittenhouse said he went there to protect property after two nights in which rioters set fires and ransacked businesses.
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In his opening statement, prosecutor Thomas Binger described the unrest as 'two of the roughest nights that our community has ever seen', and said outsiders were drawn to Kenosha 'like moths to a flame'.
Yet Mr Binger repeatedly stressed that amid the hundreds of people in Kenosha and the anger and chaos in the streets, 'the only person who killed anyone is the defendant, Kyle Rittenhouse'.
Rittenhouse's lawyer, Mark Richards, told the jury that his client acted in self-defence after one of the men dove for his gun and others kicked him in the face and clubbed him in the head with a skateboard.
The jurors were shown drone footage of the fatal shooting where Joseph Rosenbaum could be seen being shot at close range.
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The footage showed Rosenbaum following Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse suddenly spins around and fires his rifle at him.
It was the clearest video yet of the fatal shooting in August 2020 that set in motion what followed moments later: Rittenhouse then killed Anthony Huber, a 26-year-old protester seen on a bystander video hitting Rittenhouse with a skateboard.
Rittenhouse then wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, a protester and volunteer medic.
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The defendant had travelled there with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle and, according to his lawyers, he feared his rifle would be taken away and used against him.
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