Prosecutors show Rittenhouse trial jurors video of shootings

In this Aug. 25, 2020, file photo, Kyle Rittenhouse carries a weapon as he walks along Sheridan Road in Kenosha, Wis., during a night of unrest following the weekend police shooting of Jacob Blake. [File photo: Adam Rogan/The Journal Times via AP]

Wendy Rittenhouse, left, talks to her son Kyle Rittenhouse, before the start of his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021. Rittenhouse is accused of killing two people and wounding a third during a protest over police brutality in Kenosha, last year. [Photo: Mark Hertzberg/Pool Photo via AP]

Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger points to a video screen as he questions Koerri Washington during Kyle Rittenhouse's trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Wednesday, Nov. 3 2021. Rittenhouse is accused of killing two people and wounding a third during a protest over police brutality in Kenosha, last year. [Photo: Sean Krajacic/The Kenosha News via AP, Pool]

The jury at Kyle Rittenhouse's murder trial over a string of shootings on the streets of Kenosha watched one of the central pieces of video evidence Wednesday — footage of a man chasing Rittenhouse and throwing a plastic bag at him just before the man was gunned down.

Someone is heard yelling “F--- you!,” followed by the sounds of the four shots Rittenhouse fired, killing Joseph Rosenbaum, though the shooting itself is not clearly seen on camera. Rosenbaum was the first of three men Rittenhouse shot that night, two of them fatally.

“Oh, he shot him! He shot him, man. He shot him. He shot him, man. He laid him out," the person making the video can be heard saying.

Footage shown to the jury also depicted Rosenbaum lying on the ground as frantic bystanders surrounded him to help. He had a wound to his head, and a bystander placed a shirt on it to apply pressure.

The scenes were part of a wealth of video played in court that captured the chaos and the repeated sound of gunfire on the night the 17-year-old aspiring police officer fired an assault-style rifle during a tumultuous demonstration against police brutality in the summer of 2020.

In the courtroom, Rittenhouse — seated in the jurors' line of sight — kept his eyes fixed on a desktop screen and showed no emotion as video depicted him walking down a street with his rifle and shooting at protesters, people scattering and screaming.

Many of the videos played in court were found by police on social media sites, where lots of footage was streamed live or promptly posted after the bloodshed, and many of the scenes were familiar to those following the case.

Rittenhouse, now 18, could get life in prison if convicted in the politically polarizing case that has stirred furious debate over self-defense, vigilantism, the right to bear arms, and the racial unrest that erupted around the U.S. after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and other cases like it.

The young man traveled to Kenosha from his home in Illinois after violent 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.

Prosecutors have portrayed him as the instigator of the bloodshed, while his lawyer argued that he acted in self-defense after Rosenbaum tried to grab his gun and others in the crowd kicked him in the face and hit him in the head with a skateboard.

A Kenosha detective who took the stand detailed injuries Rittenhouse suffered that night, all seemingly minor: a half-inch scratch above his eyebrow, a small cut inside his lower lip, a 2-inch scratch below his collarbone, a 2-inch scratch on his forearm, a scratch on his back and two bumps the size of pennies on his head.