Angry protesters at the University of Memphis disrupted a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) event featuring Kyle Rittenhouse on Wednesday night.
The university’s TPUSA University Chapter invited Rittenhouse to speak about the Second Amendment and self-defense, but some students interrupted part of Rittenhouse’s question-and-answer session and caused attendees to leave campus. The chase turned into chaos in a video taken at the event show.
According to TPUSA, the university took “unprecedented action to ruin the event” after previous ticket holders were warned before the event that their seats were no longer reserved and would need to be rebooked. It is said that
“Taking control of seating arrangements and ticketing systems on the day of an event has never occurred in our many years of campus operations,” TPUSA spokesman Andrew Corbett said in a statement. “This sudden change will disappoint hundreds of students who have purchased tickets but will no longer be able to enter the venue.”
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Demonstrators protest against the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, on November 19, 2021. (Reuters/David Dee Delgado)
TPUSA said organizers were limited to only one row of eight seats “despite being promised control of 50 seats.”
Corbett said he had “gathered credible information” that school administrators leaked new ticketing information to protesters to fill seats for the walkout.
“There was no way for these groups to know the new ticketing timing and protocols without school administrators divulging that information,” Corbett said.
Several social media posts about X reveal that in the days leading up to the event, some students encouraged other students to email school administrators to cancel Rittenhouse’s appearance did.
“We should not welcome murderers on our campus who want to talk about the ‘lies’ of BLM!” one post read.
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kyle rittenhouse (Sean Krajach – Pool/Getty Images)
According to several videos uploaded to Ta.
“No justice, no peace,” a protester can be heard shouting in one video.
Another video shows protesters chasing protesters into cars in a university parking lot, shouting obscenities and blocking exits. State troopers are seen trying to control the crowd.
In a video uploaded to X just after 1 a.m. Thursday, Rittenhouse said it was a “great event” attended by “interesting people to say the least.” He also said that because there was a “forced end” time for the event to end at 9 p.m., he did not get booed off the stage.
The University of Memphis did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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On August 25, 2020, Rittenhouse was found not guilty on five charges after fatally shooting two people and wounding a third on the second night of riots in Kenosha. His lawyer argued that Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, had committed criminal acts. Gaige Grosskreutz, 27, stands behind the deceased Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, during the riot after police shot and killed Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man. It was self-defense when he was attacked.
The two people who died had previous convictions for domestic abuse, child sexual abuse, and disturbing the peace.
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A man on a bicycle passes a municipal truck on fire during protests after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, outside the Kenosha County Courthouse on August 23, 2020 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Ta. (Left: Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, USA TODAY, via Reuters; Right: Sean Krajacic/Pool, via Reuters)
FOX News’ Michael Lewis and Paul Best contributed to this report.
