KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — The jury has begun deliberating at the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse after listening to two weeks of dueling portrayals of Rittenhouse.

Prosecutors say he was a “wannabe soldier” who instigated the bloodshed; the defense says he acted in self-defense after coming under attack.

The 18-year-old Rittenhouse faces life in prison if convicted as charged for using a AR-style semi-automatic rifle to kill two men and wound a third during a night of protests against racial injustice in Kenosha in the summer of 2020. He is white, as were those he shot.

The case has become a flashpoint in the U.S. debate over guns, protests, vigilantism and law and order.

The anonymous, 12-member jury began deliberating after Rittenhouse himself, in a highly unusual move, was allowed by the judge to draw slips of paper from a raffle drum to determine which of the 18 people who sat in judgment during the trial would decide his fate and which would be alternates.

The resulting jury appeared to be overwhelmingly white.