Jurors heard starkly different portrayals of Kyle Rittenhouse — instigator or victim — in opening statements at his trial Tuesday on charges of shooting three people on the streets of Kenosha during a turbulent protest against racial injustice.

A jury was selected in a single day Monday for the homicide trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the young, aspiring police officer who shot three people while they were out on the streets of Kenosha during a protest against racial injustice last year.

Will County Coroner Laurie Summers said Holly Matthews and Jonathan Ceballos, both 22 and Joliet residents were fatally shot early Sunday at the party in the city about 45 miles southwest of Chicago.

"We will do what it takes, individually and collectively, to address the immediate violence on our streets and invest in fighting the underlying causes that cause too much despair, too much addiction, too little mental health treatment and too few opportunities,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Monday.

The hearing was likely the last before Rittenhouse goes on trial Nov. 1 for the shootings during chaotic demonstrations in Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020, two days after a white police officer in that city shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back while responding to a domestic disturbance.

A shocked and saddened industry was reminded this week, many productions still use guns — real guns — when filming. And despite rules and regulations, people can get killed, as happened last week when Alec Baldwin fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins after he was handed a weapon and told it was safe.

Political corruption. Gun violence. Financial crimes. Homegrown terrorism. These are just a selection of the cases brought in the last four years by John Lausch, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Jovan McPherson was held without bail Tuesday following his arrest on felony charges of attempted murder, aggravated battery of a peace officer, unlawful use of weapon, armed kidnapping and aggravated unlawful restraint stemming from a Monday shooting.

The shooting occurred in the 1000 block of West North Avenue at around 3:30 p.m. Monday. The wounded officer was taken to Illinois Masonic Hospital and is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, according to police.

Amid a surge in violence, the University of Chicago aims to help make the city a model for how to rebuild traumatized communities.

Police charged Aireon Luster, 24, on Wednesday with first-degree murder and attempted murder in the death of Serenity Broughton. He was ordered held without bond during a Thursday court hearing. 

An Illinois man who shot three people during a protest over police brutality in Wisconsin last year was justified because the men confronted him and two of them tried to wrestle his gun away, a use-of-force expert called by the defense testified at a pretrial hearing Tuesday.

The victims included a 17-year-old boy, who was killed inside a South Side home Saturday evening, according to Chicago police.

In a single three-month summer period in Chicago, 1,606 people were shot. That’s the population equivalent to many American small towns. They are numbers — and more significantly, lives — that have become part of a grimly familiar dynamic in the city.

The number of shootings and homicides in 2021 continues to outpace 2020’s rates, as Chicago has now seen 2,726 shootings and 616 homicides through the first nine months of the year.

The FBI released its annual Uniform Crime Report for 2020 on Monday, showing that the number of homicides increased nearly 30% from 2019, the largest single-year increase the agency has recorded since it began tracking these crimes in the 1960s.