The defense dismissed the evidence as digital “hocus pocus, out of focus.” Photo: Sean KrajacicSean Krajacic/The Kenosha News via AP

Prosecutors argue that a still image made from drone video shows that Kyle Rittenhouse illegally aimed his rifle at someone, provoking a reaction from the first man he killed, Joseph Rosenbaum, in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. If the haziness of some key video evidence, and of Wisconsin’s self-defense statute, might make it hard for the jurors to decide whether or not Rittenhouse had the right to use deadly force against Rosenbaum, their task is much more clear-cut when it comes to the subsequent shots Rittenhouse fired that killed Huber, wounded Grosskreutz, and narrowly missed the unnamed protester referred to as “Jump Kick Man.”

Guided by 36 pages of dizzying instructions from the judge, the jurors will decide if Rittenhouse bears criminal responsibility for shooting at those four protesters (and endangering the safety of a fifth man, a Daily Caller journalist who was standing behind Rosenbaum) or if the teen had a legal right to self-defense each of the eight times he pulled the trigger. He is accused of endangering the safety of an unidentified protester who tried to kick him, by firing two shots that missed the man, and of the attempted murder of Gaige Grosskreutz, a protest medic whose right arm was torn apart by a shot fired from point-blank range as he advanced on the teen gunman. Rittenhouse faces additional charges for shooting at the other two men who tried to subdue him just over a minute after he fired four full metal jacket bullets into Rosenbaum’s body. Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, is accused of murdering first Joseph Rosenbaum, a volatile presence at the protest who chased the heavily armed teen for reasons that remain unclear, and then Anthony Huber, one of three protesters who tried to disarm the gunman as he fled the scene. The twelve jurors who will decide Kyle Rittenhouse’s fate began their deliberations on Tuesday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the teenage vigilante, armed with a semiautomatic rifle, shot and killed two men, and wounded a third, during a Black Lives Matter protest last year. The jury in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse returned not guilty verdicts on all counts on Friday.

Drone video of rittenhouse shooting