(NEW YORK) — Two trials over killings that have garnered national attention are now going on simultaneously and legal experts said they expect both will hinge on video evidence.

Jury selection in the trial of 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, who is accused of killing two white people and wounding a third during a protest over the police shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, began on Monday.

At the same time, jury selection is ongoing for the trial of three white men accused of chasing down and killing Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was jogging in Brunswick, Georgia.

Opening statements in both cases could commence by the end of this week.

Chris Slobogin, a law professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and director of the school’s Criminal Justice Program, told ABC News that he is not aware of two major murder trials such as these occurring at the same time.

Although the allegations are vastly different, video is expected to play a major role in both trials.

“The prevalence of video in this day and age has made many criminal cases much different than was the case 10, 20, 30 years ago,” Slobogin said.

But Slobogin said the video evidence does not necessarily mean a slam dunk for prosecutors in either case.

“Visual evidence isn’t necessarily the truth in the sense that there are a lot of different angles to any given event and the only angle you’re getting when you have video is the angle that the camera was pointed from,” Slobogin said.

Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time of his alleged crimes, is claiming he used deadly force because he was being attacked by a mob and feared for his life.

The Antioch, Illinois teen Rittenhouse, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide. He has also pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of possession of a firearm by an individual under the age of 18.

Rittenhouse, according to his attorneys, answered “his patriotic and civil duty to serve” when an online call was put out by a former Kenosha city alderman for “patriots” to take up arms and help protect lives and property in the city against looting and rioting that occurred in August 2020.

Angry protests broke out in Kenosha after a police officer there shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, multiple times in the back, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. The local district attorney declined to charge the officer after he was cleared in an investigation by the state Department of Justice.

Rittenhouse, who is white, is accused of using an AR-style semiautomatic rifle to fatally shoot two men, Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, during an Aug. 25, 2020, protest in Kenosha. He is also accused of shooting and severely wounding another white protester Gaige Grosskreutz, 27.

“We have a situation where a 17-year-old boy, who is not even legally able to carry a weapon, was allegedly in town to protect property that did not belong to him. That’s extraordinary,” veteran Michigan defense attorney Jamie White told ABC News. “Clearly, he (Rittenhouse) was under some form of assault when you look at the video in an acute sense. But when you look at the entirety of the situation, he just should not have been there.”

The Arbery case

In the Arbery case, the defendants Gregory McMichael, 65, a retired police officer, his son, Travis McMichael, 35, and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, are accused of trying to make a citizens’ arrest when Travis McMichael allegedly shot the unarmed Arbery three times with a shotgun, killing him.

Travis McMichael is also expected to claim self-defense, arguing the use of deadly force was justified when the 25-year-old Black man violently resisted a citizens’ arrest under a law that existed at the time. The pre-Civil War-era law that was repealed in May primarily due to the Arbery killing gave civilian vigilantes the power to arrest someone they “reasonably suspected” of trying to escape from a felony.

Gregory McMichael, according to his attorneys, claims he thought Arbery, who was jogging past his house, matched the description of a neighborhood burglary suspect. Both he and his son allegedly brandished firearms while chasing Arbery in Travis McMichael’s pickup truck that prosecutors allege had a vanity plate featuring a Confederate flag.

Bryan recorded a cellphone video of the confrontation that partly captured Travis McMichael shooting Arbery during a struggle and is expected to be the key evidence prosecutors plan to present at trial.

Bryan’s lawyer claims he was just a witness to the incident, but prosecutors alleged he was an active participant in “hunting down” Arbery. Prosecutors also allege that Bryan told investigators he overheard Travis McMichael yell a racial slur at Arbery as he lay dying in the street, an allegation the younger McMichael denies.

Prosecutors say the evidence will show Arbery was just out for a Sunday jog when he was allegedly murdered.

All three men have pleaded not guilty to state charges of murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment stemming from the Feb. 23, 2020, fatal shooting in the unincorporated Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick.

The three men were also indicted on federal hate crime charges in April and have all pleaded not guilty.

“We have men who had no property interest in the home where the deceased was apparently trespassing at the worst-case scenario and ended up shot to death,” said White, the Michigan trial attorney, referring to a home that was under construction Arbery was caught on surveillance video leaving empty-handed just before he was killed.

‘I just shot somebody’

Video evidence expected to be presented in the Kenosha case could prove favorable in the defense of Rittenhouse, Obear said.

“You know the old saying, a picture speaks a thousand words, a video speaks a million. Having watched the videos, I think it’s very apparent exactly what the defense argument will be: ‘You just have to watch the videos,'” Obear said. “He’s basically naturally in a position where he would seem to be defending himself with people approaching him in that manner.”

Cellphone videos played at earlier court hearings, partly captured two confrontations the teenager was involved in. In the first, Rosenbaum allegedly followed Rittenhouse into a used car lot and confronted him in an attempt to disarm him before he was shot to death, according to a criminal complaint. As Rosenbaum lay on the ground, Rittenhouse was recorded in a video running away while allegedly calling a friend and telling them, “I shot somebody.”

Defense attorneys have cited what appears to be the muzzle flash of a gun in the video before Rittenhouse fired his first shot.

Other videos recorded after Rosenbaum was shot show people chasing Rittenhouse down a street and him apparently being hit by Huber with a skateboard and falling to the ground. The video shows Rittenhouse allegedly shooting Huber, who apparently tried to take his gun away and firing at Grosskreutz, who investigators said was armed with a handgun. Grosskreutz suffered a severe wound to his arm when he tried to grab Rittenhouse’s rifle, prosecutors said.

The videos prompted then-President Donald Trump to comment on the Rittenhouse case in August 2020, saying it appeared he was acting in self-defense.

“He was trying to get away from them, I guess, it looks like,” Trump said during a news conference. “I guess he was in very big trouble. He probably would have been killed.”

A number of conservatives and gun-rights advocates rallied to Rittenhouse’s defense, contributing to his defense fund and putting up $2 million to cover his bail.

Judge’s controversial ruling

During what was expected to be the final hearing before the Rittenhouse trial begins, Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder made a series of rulings that White said appeared to help the defense.

Schroeder ruled that defense attorneys can refer to the two men who were killed and the one wounded as “looters” and “rioters,” but barred prosecutors from referring to them as “victims” or even “alleged victims” during the trial, saying they must be called “complaining witnesses” or “decedent.”

The judge also granted the defense permission to call an expert witness in police use of force, even though the testimony will pertain to a civilian’s use of force.

“We do see the judge already acting in a way that could be arguably biased,” White said.

But Obear said much is being made over what he described as a “pretty standard” ruling.

“No one is a ‘victim’ until there’s an adjudication of guilt and the prosecutors like to throw that term around as if it’s a prejudged sort of situation,” Obear said. “But it’s a loaded term. When people hear the term victim it naturally conjures sympathy.”

Both White and Obear agreed that allowing the defense to call an expert on the use of force is a “huge win” for Rittenhouse.

“I think that what Mr. Rittenhouse did on this occasion is so extraordinary that to allow a third party to come in and make commentary about that from a legal point of view is certainly going to be powerful and probably will persuade the jury in one way or the other,” White said.

Obear added, “If this all has to do with what was going on inside of Kyle Rittenhouse’s mind the only way to solve that question is to let a jury decide this.”

“What possible reasonable resolution could there be here? We’re talking about homicides and his position is, ‘I didn’t do anything wrong, and self-defense is an absolute defense,’” Obear said. “If that’s correctly posited to the jury, they’ll find him not guilty, and he’ll go home.”

Will Rittenhouse take the witness stand?

Legal experts interviewed by ABC News were split on whether defense lawyers should put Rittenhouse on the witness stand.

“This is a case where I can actually see the defense prevailing here without putting him on the stand,” Obear said, citing the video evidence.

But White believes Rittenhouse should testify.

“He’s a child … and anytime you can present someone who’s vulnerable in that kind of way it’s going to benefit the defense from the standpoint of a jury,” White said.

Slobogin, however, said that if Rittenhouse testifies, he runs the risk of opening the door for prosecutors to raise broader questions about his actions and intentions.

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(NEW YORK) — The U.S. was gripped by two public health crises in 2020: the COVID-19 pandemic and a historic rise in gun violence.

Even as cities locked down, people retreated into their homes and life was seemingly put on pause last year, 2020 still marked the deadliest year for gun violence in at least two decades, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

There were more than 19,400 homicides involving a gun and accidental fatal shootings — a 25% increase from 2019, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. Gun suicides reached 24,000 last year, matching the year prior.

Experts say it’s not easy to identify one precise reason for the rise in gun violence.

Rather, 2020 was a turbulent time that presented COVID-19 concerns and economic downturn as well as a racial reckoning that rocked communities in multiple ways, including massive protests and civil unrest.

It also was a time when an estimated 23 million guns were purchased — a 65% increase from 2019, according to Small Arms Analytics, a consulting firm that tracks gun sales. It is unclear if the increase in gun purchases was linked to the increase in gun violence and research is split on the connection generally.

The violence unfolded across the country, big and small cities alike. Overall, 57% of 129 law enforcement agencies surveyed across the nation by the Police Executive Research Forum reported an increase in gun homicides from 2019 to 2020, according to the January 2021 report.

The agencies serving the biggest cities reported a 75% increase in firearm homicides in 2020 compared to 2019, and all surveyed agencies also reported a nearly 70% increase in nonfatal shootings.

Colorado mother-of-three Ana Thallas’ life changed forever amid the pandemic when her daughter Isabella was fatally shot while walking her dog with her boyfriend in a Denver park on June 10, 2020, just two days after her 21st birthday. Her boyfriend was shot twice by the suspect but survived.

The Denver District Attorney’s office said that Michael Close, 37, allegedly got into an argument with the couple “over a command they used to have their dog defecate,” and he opened fire with an assault rifle.

“I never thought my daughter would be slaughtered mid-morning walking a dog in the middle of the city,” Thallas told ABC News. “This pandemic has created fear within people. Just having to be secluded, cooped up and isolated contributed to the mental health crisis. Fear turns into anger, and the anger turns into violence.”

2020 was a ‘perfect storm’

Dr. Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said 2020 was the “perfect storm” of conditions where “everything bad happened at the same time — you had the COVID outbreak, huge economic disruption, people were scared.”

At the same time, after-school programs and violence disruption programs were greatly restricted, plus 2020 was an election year, during which gun purchases tend to rise for fear that the new administration will change gun policies, Webster said.

“It’s particularly challenging to know with certainty which of these things independently is associated with the increased violence. Rather it was the ‘cascade’ of events all unfolding in a similar time frame,” he added.

For instance, as kids moved to at-home online learning due to school closures and many parents either lost jobs or had to work remotely — all while grappling with financial stress and social isolation — there was gun violence in some of their homes.

From March to December 2020, unintentional shooting deaths by children rose 31% over the same time in 2019, resulting in 128 gun deaths, according to the Everytown #NotAnAccident Index.

Unsafe storage likely played a role, experts say. A January study by the University of California, Davis violence prevention research program found “more than 50,000 Californians said they had started storing at least one of their firearms in the least secure way — loaded and not locked up,” Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz, an assistant professor with VPRP who led the study said. “Approximately half of those respondents lived in homes with children or teens.”

People changed how they stored guns based on “fear and anxiety and pandemic-induced uncertainty about the future,” the study found.

But storing a firearm unsecured is a massive risk, Kravitz-Wirtz said, especially for unintentional shootings and suicide. Approximately 60% of gun deaths are suicides according to CDC data.

Although preliminary CDC data shows that overall suicides in the U.S. slightly decreased in 2020 compared to the year prior, gun suicides still surpassed 24,000, just as they did in 2019.

Another way gun violence played out in homes was through domestic violence incidents.

A study entitled “Firearm purchasing and firearm violence during the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.” analyzed data from March through July 2020 and found that excess firearm purchasing was associated with an increase in firearm injuries from domestic violence in April and May, “particularly during the early months where social distancing was at its highest point,” said Julia P. Schleimer, the main author of the report with UC Davis’ violence prevention research program. The authors say that linking firearm violence to civil unrest and other factors during summer of 2020 had to be studied further.

The pandemic led to an 8% increase in calls for domestic violence services in March, April and May, the initial three months of the pandemic, in 14 large U.S. cities, according to a study published in Journal of Public Economics.

The Domestic Violence Hotline also received the highest incoming volume in its history, with over 636,000 calls, chats and texts in 2020, including a 19% rise in callers experiencing the use or threat of firearms last year, according to the organization.

The pandemic may have put many people in a vulnerable situation as research shows that access to a gun makes it five times more likely that a woman will die at the hands of a domestic abuser, according to the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence.

Impact on Black and Latino communities ​

An analysis of nine U.S. cities found that over 85% of the increase in gun violence from 2019 to 2020 was in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

These groups had to deal with the converging crises in 2020: coronavirus and gun violence. They were already disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, with Black and Hispanic people nearly twice as likely to die from COVID-19, according to CDC data.

At the same time, Black people are 10 times more likely to die from gun homicide than white people, according to an Everytown analysis of the CDC’s Underlying Cause of Death database. In 2019, Latino people were nearly twice as likely to be killed by guns than non-Hispanic whites, according to a study from the Violence Policy Center.

In the pandemic, these groups also were disproportionately affected by job loss and financial strife compared to white households, according to a summer 2020 poll by NPR, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Further, these more than half of all Black, Latino and Native American workers hold essential and nonessential jobs that must be done in person, compared to 41% of white workers, even as many jobs went remote out of safety precautions, according to a December 2020 report by the Urban Institute.

John Donohue, a Stanford University law professor who studies gun violence, said time periods of stress are associated with more shootings.

“It does seem that the dislocations of the pandemic were in neighborhoods that were more vulnerable to both the economic insecurities and just pressures of a more stressful life,” Donahue said. “The pandemic was a major disruption.”

Kravitz-Wirtz told ABC News that the violence was concentrated “in neighborhoods that have experienced systemic racism and disinvestment.”

The closure of community centers and suspension of many violence prevention organizations also led to “destabilization that can really create the conditions for violence to emerge,” she added.

As gun violence played out in homes and communities, law enforcement also faced challenges responding to crime due to COVID-19 concerns and tensions with the public.

Donohue said civil unrest and police played a role in the storm.

Officers couldn’t be “as effective in stopping crime,” because they were responding to protests around the country in 2020 decrying racism and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death by Minneapolis police, Donohue said.

Several police agencies also reported they scaled back proactive enforcement due to the pandemic, such as making fewer traffic stops and suspending gun buyback programs, the Police Executive Research Forum said in their January 2021 report.

“You had police departments overtaxed in response to COVID because their officers were getting sick. Then you had the George Floyd murder and ripple effects from protests and then often violent response by law enforcement,” Webster said. “There is a clear connection between trust in police and community safety, all of this takes a toll on public safety.”

Increase in gun ownership

Researchers at the UC Davis violence prevention research program issued a statewide survey in July 2020 that asked respondents specifically if they acquired a gun due to the pandemic as well as their concerns about violence in the health crisis. They found that an estimated 110,000 California adults acquired a firearm in response to fears stemming from the pandemic, including 47,000 new firearm owners, according to the January study.

The survey respondents who bought firearms mainly did so for protection, with 76% saying they were concerned about lawlessness, 56% about prisoner releases and 49% that the government was going too far due to changes during the pandemic.

One in 10 residents surveyed also expressed fear that someone they knew may intentionally harm someone or themselves due to pandemic losses including losing a loved one, job or housing.

Experts are split on whether the stunning rise in gun purchases will fuel future firearm violence.

While there is a broad field of research that provides evidence that gun availability increases the risk for firearm violence, 2020 is unique in that other compounding factors are at play.

Last year’s trends have already continued into 2021, with over 31,000 gun violence deaths recorded, according to Gun Violence Archive data, and over 27 million background checks initiated so far, according to National Instant Criminal Background Check System data.

Schleimer, who studied firearm purchases and firearm violence in 2020, said it’s possible that increased firearm access and continuing stressors could “result in an increased risk of firearm violence moving forward.”

The US can ‘shift the trajectory’

Donohue, though, forecasts some of the violence could taper off with the end of the pandemic.

“As the pandemic recedes, you’ll get some restoration of normality,” he said. “But we still are going to have to contend with the politicians, growing power of weaponry and its increasing availability and tensions between the public and the police — all unhelpful for restricting crime.”

Kravitz-Wirtz said there’s been “positive momentum” to reverse the pandemic’s trend of gun violence. But she warned that root issues of inequality need to be addressed through “thriving wage” jobs, housing security and youth empowerment programs especially in Black and brown communities.

“There’s a real opportunity now,” Kravitz-Wirtz said. “We can really shift the trajectory that we’ve been experiencing in positive directions if we can follow through on the data-informed and community wisdom-informed strategies.”

On a national and state level, there have been efforts to mitigate gun violence. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced federal strike forces in five major cities to take down gun trafficking corridors over the summer, and President Joe Biden unveiled several executive actions to combat the rise in shootings. The administration has also allowed coronavirus relief funds to be used for community violence intervention.

In Colorado, Thallas helped get the Isabella Joy Act passed in honor of her daughter. It requires gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms to law enforcement within five days of realizing the weapon is missing. The Denver Police Department said the shooter in Isabella’s case had taken a rifle from a friend’s home without their knowledge or permission, CBS Denver affiliate KCNC reported.

Thallas is now calling for the act, which went into effect last month, to be implemented nationally.

“Unfortunately I don’t see an end to this [gun] epidemic. Encouraging responsible gun ownership would be more realistic,” Thallas said. “It’s our family that pays the life sentence with Isabella’s death. Don’t doubt this couldn’t be you. Be proactive, not reactive.”

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(NEW YORK) — In New York City, where a vaccine mandate for municipal workers is now in effect, 18 fire companies are out of service due to sick calls Monday, but no firehouses are closed and the mayor said there were no immediate disruptions to city services.

Nearly all New York City municipal workers, including police officers, firefighters and EMTs, had until 5 p.m. Friday to get at least one shot or be placed on unpaid leave, starting Monday. While the official deadline was Friday, those who got vaccinated over the weekend will not be placed on leave.

FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said he couldn’t say how many fire companies were understaffed Monday morning because it “changes by the minute.” But Nigro did call on firefighters to stop misusing sick leave and report to work.

“There are understaffed units. That understaffing could end immediately if members stopped going sick when they weren’t sick,” Nigro said. “Once the members come to their senses and stop using medical leave improperly, they can help out not just the citizens of the city but their brothers and sisters staffing the units.”

Firefighters Association President Andrew Ansbro and FDNY-Fire Officers Association President Jim McCarthy said at a Monday news conference that they tried to negotiate for more time for members to be able to file for exemptions, decide on retirement or get the shot.

About 9,000 municipal workers were on leave without pay Monday, representing about 6% of the total city workforce, said Danielle Filson, the mayor’s press secretary.

“Mandates work,” Filson said. “That number will continue to decrease. The remaining have pending accommodations/exemption requests. They are working and subject to weekly testing.”

Of the municipal departments, the Department of Corrections, which faces a later compliance deadline, currently has the most unvaccinated workers, followed by the FDNY, which has an 80% vaccination rate.

ABC News’ Alexandra Faul contributed to this report.

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