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 collegeās Turning Point USA chapter to speak at the campus. However, the event was met with backlash from a number of students who objected to Rittenhouseās presence.
The 21-year-old gained notoriety in August 2020 when, at the age of 17, heĀ shot and killed two menāJoseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutzāat 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.
The issue is he couldnāt know at that moment if what the students said or their portrayal of it is accurate. Furthermore, people canāt just instantly reach informed conclusions about things, a lot of people need, yk time to think. If I try to think about something on the spot Iāll just stutter and not make any sense
āI am not aware of these comments or their context, but if saidāyes, I agree they are racist.ā Not hard.
Thatās easy to say in retrospect, itās hard for a lot of people to answer something they didnāt expect on the spot, even if they know the answer