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.

  • 0_o@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    For anyone interested the full trail is still available online and is a very interesting watch for anyone even remotely interested in the US justice system. I do feel a lot of the commenters above may feel differently after watching the entire trial and viewing the evidence presented first-hand rather than skewed through the lenses of journalists from either side of the political compass.

    • infamousta@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      I think that most critics of Kyle Rittenhouse donā€™t disagree with the carriage of justice as much as the disgusting capitalization of his person after the fact. And the entire rationalization for bringing a weapon to a protest is frankly sick, whether he used justified force or not.

      • Samueru@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I think that most critics of Kyle Rittenhouse donā€™t disagree with the carriage of justice

        This very thread is full of people saying that the judge was biased and lying with what actually happened.

        edit: look no further that people are comparing the trial to OJ Simpson kek.

        • infamousta@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          And those folks wouldnā€™t be commenting at all if he wasnā€™t paraded around like some ā€œget away with murderā€ mascot. It was a massive and heinous childhood fuckup and heā€™s giving speeches at colleges now like heā€™s something one should aspire to be. Technicalities of the trial are not the real problem people have.

          • Samueru@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Bro all this crap started since day one, nothing is new here, all the parade and everything happened afterwards.

            I think this is some russian bot propaganda thing, because it canā€™t be that the same lies from day one are still being repeated over and over, including the one that kyle shot black people.

      • 0_o@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        To be fair I was under the assumption that he wasnā€™t intending to capitalize on this situation at all, he did surrender the firearm used and requested it to be destroyed after the proceedings concluded so that it wouldnā€™t be sold-off and used as some sort of political symbolā€¦ It saddens me to learn that he is using such a tragedy to push any form of message other than a anti-firearm cautionary tale.

        • infamousta@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          Yeah so I donā€™t think he went and killed some folks to get famous, I think he happened to kill some folks and got famous. And heā€™s malaligned, certainly a dumb kid like most of us were.

          My criticism of Kyle is more around conservative folks who want to lean into that dumb kid fuck up like itā€™s something aspirational.

          I think absolutely if you want to hold it up as a triumph of the justice system Iā€™m with you. But as an example of a good human not so much.

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      Naw canā€™t watch the trial, then youā€™d find out that Rosenbaum had an encounter earlier in the night at a gas station with a guy dressed like Kyle (but +plate carrier) who put out Rosenbaumā€™s dumpster fire (the infanous ā€œShoot me n-wordā€ video where Rosenbaum gets a pass to say ā€œit.ā€) Then a little while later the drone video where Rosenbaum, still starting fires, crouches behind a car while Kyle walks past, steps out supposedly saying he was going to kill Kyle, and chases him/throws the bag, corners him, someone fires a shot from the crowd (likely Ziminski) while Kyle gets trapped by cars, and turning around hearing a shot Rosenbaum grabs for the gun, so Kyle shoots him. Then he makes the phone call (IIRC to Dominick Black), hears ā€œGET HIMā€ and he starts running, gets hit in the back of the head with a rock that takes him down, he rolls over as jump kick man gets a hit, points it but doesnā€™t fire as dude was already retreating, Huber hits him with the skateboard and attempts again to take his rifle, shoots Huber, and the other guy who just surrenders, then Gageā€™s fake surrender (war crimes much?) then Gage takes one in the bicep, then Kyle gets up and continues running towards police.

      Youā€™d also find out that not only was all that justified, he never ā€œcrossed state lines with the gunā€ as the gun lived in Kenosha at Dominickā€™s house, and he could in fact legally possess the rifle at 17 due to local laws. Furthermore he worked in Kenosha and his dad lived there. While he did travel from his momā€™s in Antioch 20mi away, Huber came from Silver Lake also 20mi away, and Gage came from 46mi away.

      That wouldnā€™t be good, canā€™t learn the actual facts of the case, just gotta hang your hat on ā€œhe shouldnā€™t have been there.ā€