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.

  • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    he was at the demonstration to “protect businesses and provide medical assistance.”

    Remember kids: you can take lives to protect property. You can not damage property to protect lives.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Yeah, it is wild how the anti-BLM types will quote the supposed “the country’s cities were burned to the ground” (really, when was this again?) and some ginned-up numbers of total dollars of damages done, usually with great amount of hand-wringing about damage done to businesses.

      They tip their hands without even realizing it, I think.

    • Sami_Uso@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Property over people. It’s almost cliche at this point to bring it up but here’s a reminder that police in the USA were created primarily to return escaped slaves to their owners, they were a tool of the wealthy and merchant class. It’s protect property and serve capital above all else.

        • Flax@feddit.uk
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          8 months ago

          Yeah, but the shots were in self defence, even though he shouldn’t have been there

          • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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            8 months ago

            So back to my comment:
            He can go there, with his gun, to potentially take lives to protect property.
            This is because the protestors are not allowed to damage property to protect lives.

              • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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                8 months ago

                What live are people protecting

                From the article:

                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.

                When the state treats a group of people’s lives as less important than property, people are going to react to that.

                Or by punching an old man in the face that had a fire extinguisher

                I watched the video, the man was using the fire extinguisher on people, how would you respond if someone was using a fire extinguisher on you?

                • Samueru@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  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.

                  You really think those people were BLM protester?! Do you think this guy is also a BLM protester?

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N70fok1R2Kg

                  When the state treats a group of people’s lives as less important than property, people are going to react to that.

                  Nvm that they were “protesting” the shooting of Jacob Blake which was 100% justified as it turned out the dude was abusing his girlfriend and pulled a knife on the police when they tried to arrest him.

                  how would you respond if someone was using a fire extinguisher on you?

                  The guy that hit him was some random person on shorts, they weren’t even being sprayed on by the fire extinguisher lmao

                  But if you still want the answer no, I would not hit an old person because they used a fire extinguisher on me, I wouldn’t even fucking be looting and burning a random store to begin with.

                  • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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                    8 months ago

                    the shooting of Jacob Blake which was 100% justified as it turned out the dude was abusing his girlfriend and pulled a knife on the police when they tried to arrest him.

                    And the legal punishment for that is losing your legs? Cops in the UK take down assailants with knives all the time without paralyzing them for life. If they then had a jury sentence them to have their legs cut off people would call it barbaric, but again, put them in front of an American cop and “they had it coming.”

                    I would not hit an old person because they used a fire extinguisher on me

                    Old man or no, he was assaulting people with a fire extinguisher and got assaulted in return. Why didn’t he “have it coming”?

                    I wouldn’t even fucking be looting and burning a random store to begin with.

                    Oh right, because property is the most important thing and the property was in danger. “Won’t somebody please think of the property?!”

              • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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                8 months ago

                What business is this guy protecting by chasing people around outside of it with a fire extinguisher as they’re leaving the business? The damage was already done at that point, there was no reason to continue escalating things further. When you put yourself in dangerous situations and personally decide to escalate them, you really can’t be surprised if you get hurt when things escalate. Mess with the bull, get the horns.