Rittenhouse's appearance at a university generated hostility from a number of students but he remained positive, saying it had been "a great event."

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.

  • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
    36·
    8 months ago

    Nah, he is a murderer. Shitty laws in a shithole state does not change that fact.

    What shitty laws are we talking about? He made a pretty basic and straightforward self defense defense. He didn’t invoke Stand Your Ground, in no small part because WI doesn’t do Stand Your Ground (and all Stand Your Ground generally means is that you don’t have a duty to try to flee from an attacker if possible, and it was only really possible for Rosenbaum and he did try to flee from Rosenbaum).

    The only case where he got off on a charge because of “shitty laws” I can think of would be the weapons possession charge and that’s because WI has different ages for different classes of guns, and the kind of gun he had was in the 16+ rather than 18+ category. Ironically, there was at least one person with an illegal gun on the scene, and it was Grosskreutz, and then it was because it was a concealed carry with an expired permit.

    I can go into detail if you’d like to know why I agree with the self defense argument made for each of the shootings, but for now I’ll leave you with the point where I knew Rittenhouse would be found not guilty for Grosskreutz, since that one had a single question that changed everything:

    “It wasn’t until you pointed your gun at him — advanced on him with your gun, now your hands down, pointed at him — that he fired, right?” the defense said.

    “Correct,” Grosskreutz replied.

    Because that question was the difference between self defense or not self defense.