Rittenhouse: ‘I didn’t do anything wrong. I defended myself’
KENOSHA, Wis. — Kyle Rittenhouse testified Wednesday he was under attack when he killed two men and wounded a third with his rifle during a chaotic night of protests in Kenosha, saying: “I didn’t do anything wrong. I defended myself.”
In a high-stakes gamble, the 18-year-old took the stand at his murder trial to tell his side of what happened on the streets that day in the summer of 2020, sobbing so hard at one point that the judge called a break.
In an account largely corroborated by video and the prosecution’s own witnesses, Rittenhouse said that the first man cornered him and put his hand on the barrel of Rittenhouse’s rifle, the second man hit him with a skateboard, and the third man came at him with a gun of his own.
His nearly all-day testimony was interrupted by an angry exchange in which his lawyers demanded a mistrial over what they argued were out-of-bounds questions asked of him by the chief prosecutor.
The judge, though plainly mad at the prosecutor, did not immediately rule on the request. And later in the day, he instructed the jury to expect closing arguments early next week.
Rittenhouse, 18, is on trial over the shootings he committed during unrest that erupted in Kenosha over the wounding of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white Kenosha police officer. He could get life in prison.
BRUNSWICK, Ga. — One of the three white men standing trial for the death of Ahmaud Arbery said they had the 25-year-old Black man “trapped like a rat” before he was fatally shot, a police investigator testified.
Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves and chased Arbery in a pickup truck after they spotted him running in their coastal Georgia neighborhood on Feb. 23, 2020. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the pursuit in his own truck and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times at close range with a shotgun.
More than two months passed before the three men were arrested on charges of murder and other crimes, after the graphic video leaked online and deepened a national reckoning over racial injustice.
Glynn County police Sgt. Roderic Nohilly told the jury Wednesday he spoke with Greg McMichael at police headquarters a few hours after the shooting. He said Greg McMichael, 65, told him Arbery “wasn’t out for no Sunday jog. He was getting the hell out of there.”
The father told Nohilly he recognized Arbery because he had been recorded by security cameras a few times inside a neighboring home under construction. Greg McMichael said they gave chase to try to stop Arbery from escaping the subdivision.
“He was trapped like a rat,” Greg McMichael said, according to a transcript of their recorded interview Nohilly read in court. “I think he was wanting to flee and he realized that something, you know, he was not going to get away.”
WASHINGTON — A federal judge rejected former President Donald Trump’s request to block the release of documents to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
In denying a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said Tuesday that Congress had a strong public interest in obtaining records that could shed light on a violent insurrection mounted by the former president’s supporters. She added that President Joe Biden had the authority to waive executive privilege over the documents despite Trump’s assertions otherwise.
Barring a court order, the National Archives plans to turn over Trump’s records to the committee by Friday. But Trump’s lawyers swiftly promised an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The case probably will eventually head to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“At bottom, this is a dispute between a former and
incumbent President,” Chutkan wrote. “And the Supreme Court has already made clear that in such circumstances, the incumbent’s view is accorded greater weight.”
Trump “does not acknowledge the deference owed” to Biden’s judgment as the current president, Chutkan said. She noted examples of past presidents declining to assert executive privilege and rejected what she said was Trump’s claim that executive privilege “exists in perpetuity.”
Most of the money — $600 million — is coming from the state of Michigan, which was accused of repeatedly overlooking the risks of using the Flint River without properly treating the water.
“The settlement reached here is a remarkable achievement for many reasons, not the least of which is that it sets forth a comprehensive compensation program and timeline that is consistent for every qualifying participant,” U.S. District Judge Judith Levy said in a 178-page opinion.
Attorneys are seeking as much as $200 million in legal fees from the overall settlement. Levy left that issue for another day.
The deal makes money available to Flint children who were exposed to the water, adults who can show an injury, certain business owners and anyone who paid water bills. About 80 percent of what’s left after legal fees is earmarked for children.
“This is a historic and momentous day for the residents of Flint, who will finally begin to see justice served,” said Ted Leopold, one of the lead attorneys.
DETROIT — A judge approved a $626 million deal to settle lawsuits filed by Flint residents who found their tap water contaminated by lead following disastrous decisions to switch the city’s water source and a failure to swiftly acknowledge the problem.