Rittenhouse: 'I didn't do anything wrong. I defended myself'

Kyle Rittenhouse waits for the jury to enter the room to continue testifying during his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 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]

Kyle Rittenhouse breaks down on the stand as he testifies about his encounter with the late Joseph Rosenbaum during his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 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]

Wendy Rittenhouse, comforted by defense jury expert Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, gets emotional as her son Kyle Rittenhouse testifies during cross examination in his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 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]

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 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 on the charges.

Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, went to Kenosha with an AR-style semi-automatic weapon and a medic bag in what the former police youth cadet said was an effort to protect property after rioters had set fires and ransacked businesses on previous nights.

The case has divided Americans over whether Rittenhouse was a patriot taking a stand against lawlessness or a vigilante.

As he began crying on the stand and appeared unable to speak, his mother, Wendy Rittenhouse, seated on a bench across the courtroom, sobbed loudly. Someone put an arm around her. After the judge called a recess, jurors walked by Rittenhouse and looked on as he continued to cry.

After the morning outburst, he was largely composed the rest of the day, though his voice seemed to break at times as he came under tough cross-examination.

Prosecutor Thomas Binger went hard at Rittenhouse all afternoon during cross-examination, walking him through each of the shootings. Rittenhouse continually pushed back, saying he had no choice but to fire.

Rittenhouse said he “didn't want to have to shoot” Joseph Rosenbaum, the first man to fall that night, but he said Rosenbaum was chasing him and had threatened to kill him earlier.