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 collegeā€™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 Rittenhouseā€™s presence.

The 21-year-old gained notoriety in August 2020 when, at the age of 17, heĀ shot and killed two menā€”Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutzā€”at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

He said theĀ three shootings, carried out with a semi-automaticĀ AR-15-style firearm, were in self-defense. TheĀ Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest where the shootings took place was held afterĀ Jacob Blake, a Black man, was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer.

  • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    So if I enter your house with a gun and you ā€œthreatenā€ me, I have the right to shot you ā€œin self defenseā€, right?

    You donā€™t grab a rifle, drive to another state, go to a rally that you gate and then day ā€œthey were threatening meā€. Thatā€™s the equivalent of Russians saying now ā€œUkrainians are threatening usā€.

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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      7 months ago

      Just about everything you wrote shows a complete lack of understanding of the evidence presented at trial.

      Gun never crossed state lines. If it had, they could have busted him for a firearms possession charge in IL. The gun was kept in WI because of differences in gun laws between WI and IL.

      Driving to another state is such a nothing. Itā€™s phrased this way to make it sound like he took some massive journey, but Kenosha and Antioch are just on opposite sides of the state line from each other. The distance is about 20 miles, about half an hour by car. He worked in Kenosha as well.

      He didnā€™t just show up and declare people were threatening him and then start shooting at them. He got into an argument with Rosenbaum when Rittenhouse tried to put out a fire and Rittenhouse tried to flee him. Someone else fired a shot, at which point Rittenhouse stopped and turned and Rosenbaum was within arms length and reached for Rittenhouseā€™s gun. Rittenhouse fires.

      Then Rittenhouse starts heading for the police line. He gets knocked to the ground, and Gruber moved to start beating him with an improvised weapon. Rittenhouse shoots him too.

      Then Grosskreutz approaches him in a false surrender,.gets close, lowers his hands and points his gun at Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse shoots him. Grosskreutzā€™s own testimony said as much.

    • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Kyle works in that state and did not ā€œbring the rifle across state bordersā€ which just cements to me that so many of you did not follow the trial. Youā€™re speaking from a position of ignorance.

    • Samueru@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      You donā€™t grab a rifle, drive to another state

      This did not happen, the rifle was always there and rittenhouse was there the day before as they worked there, at least read the damn wikipedia article of the kenosha unrest before making up such blatant lies.

      edit: And to give you an example, lets say you rob a house and then flee, you can actually defend yourself if the home owner starts chasing you after you left the home.

      Here they couldnā€™t even demonstrate a ā€œcrimeā€ or something that rittenhouse did that would have given them a reason to chase him, all we know is that Rosenbaum was going around threatening people before he began to chase rittenhouse and tried to take their weapon, also the moment right before someone shot their pistol into the air which was what made rittenhouse turn around when Rosenbaum was chasing him.