Judge in Rittenhouse trial bans MSNBC from the building: 'An extremely serious matter'

With the jury now deliberating in the homicide trial of teenage vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse, the judge in the case, Bruce Schroeder , made a bombshell announcemen on Thursday: MSNBC will be banned from the courthouse through the remainder of the trial.

The announcement comes after allegations that someone who claimed to work for NBC News or MSNBC was following the jurors in the case.

Schroeder told the courtroom, "I have instructed that no one from MSNBC News will be permitted in this building for the duration of this trial. This is a very serious matter, and I don't know what the ultimate truth of it is. But absolutely, it would go without much thinking that someone who is following the jury bus — that is a very, extremely serious matter and will be referred to the proper authorities for further action."

NBC News has released an official statement, saying, "Last night, a freelancer received a traffic citation. While the traffic violation took place near the jury van, the freelancer never contacted or intended to contact the jurors during deliberations, and never photographed or intended to photograph them."

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Rittenhouse, now 18, is presently on trial for shooting three Black Lives Matters protesters, two of them fatally, during a racial justice protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. While Rittenhouse has maintained that he acted in self-defense, the prosecution in the case has stressed that all of the people he shot with an AR-15-style weapon were unarmed.