Judge warns Rittenhouse jury about 'sloppy reporting' by the media

The Wisconsin judge presiding over the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial warned potential jurors Tuesday to be wary of news reports about the trial, saying journalists have been "irresponsible and sloppy."

According to the Epoch Times, Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder expressed his concerns on the first day of testimony in the trial.

"I'm not bashing anybody, but I am going to talk about what you need to do, what you need to be thinking about if you are picked to hear this case, and how much reliance you can put on things that may be just sloppy, which is a vast amount of it," Schroeder said.

"Some of it that is deliberately biased that's out there, and sometimes from respectable media outlets. But that's the price we pay for having a free press because we value that, but we also value having a fair trial," he continued. "This is not an attack on the media. I've read things about this case that were perfect, perfectly stated what had happened in this court. And there were things, I think, 'Was I in the courtroom when that happened?'"

Schroeder had the arduous task on Monday of helping attorneys sort through a jury pool of nearly 200 people in hopes of finding jurors who haven't already made up their mind about the case.

Rittenhouse is accused of killing two people and injuring a third during riots following the officer-involved shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha last year.

Opening statements began Tuesday after Schroeder swore 20 people in as the jury — 12 jurors and eight alternates.