Kyle Rittenhouse abruptly departed the stage during an appearance at the University of Memphis on Wednesday, after he was confronted about comments made by Turning Point USA founder and president Charlie Kirk.
Rittenhouse was invited by the college’s Turning Point USA chapter to speak at the campus. However, the event was met with backlash from a number of students who objected to Rittenhouse’s presence.
The 21-year-old gained notoriety in August 2020 when, at the age of 17, he shot and killed two men—Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz—at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
He said the three shootings, carried out with a semi-automatic AR-15-style firearm, were in self-defense. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest where the shootings took place was held after Jacob Blake, a Black man, was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer.
The organization that invited him, it says above, is the local chapter of Turning Point USA; TPUSA nationally is run by a fellow called Charlie Kirk. It’s overt ‘goal’ is to ‘promote freedom’, and it does this by making lists of professors who are liberal. These professors often then get death threats. Charlie Kirk is a christofascist, and if you’re not familiar with the organization or the person, you’re missing someone who reliably pushes Trump and culture war on the rest of us.
Wow… That I wasn’t even aware of the guy. This is a good step though. The worst kind of enemy is one you don’t know or can’t see.