Kyle Rittenhouse made an appearance at the University of Memphis in March. However, he was met with boos which eventually made him leave the stage abruptly.

Kyle Rittenhouse is a 21-year-old man from Antioch, Illinois. He became popular in 2020 after he shot three men, killing two and leaving one seriously injured. This was on August 25th, during the protests, riots, and civil unrest that followed the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He became quite popular for these shootings, and his trial also had a lot of media coverage.

Rittenhouse was only a teenager of 17 years when he joined an anti-racism protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. However, he was carrying a gun while protesting that day. When chaos erupted, he shot three people in what he described as self-defense.
All three victims of this shooting were white men, and this helped him in court, noting that it was not racially motivated.

As expected, Rittenhouse was charged in court for these shootings. However, the prosecutors didn’t charge him with murder, which would have been the first option. They charged him on three counts for intentional homicide, reckless homicide, and attempted intentional homicide.
A teary-eyed Rittenhouse was found not guilty in 2021, according to The Guardian.

Now, at age 24, Rittenhouse has released a book recounting his experience and is also a popular advocate against racism. In March 2024, he gave a speech at the University of Memphis. The speech included topics like the Second Amendment and the Black Lives Matter movement. However, many people were not happy with this speech for several reasons.

According to The Daily Beast, most of the people in attendance for Rittenhouse’s speech were not supportive. Most of them were protestors who believed he should be in prison.
They had signs with them such as “Put Rittenhouse behind bars, not a podium” and “No killers on my campus.” Only a small fraction of the crowd were supporters of Rittenhouse.

Rittenhouse’s speech at the University of Memphis was sponsored by Turning Point USA. However, the protesters do not like Turning Point USA’s founder and president, Charlie Kirk. This is because Kirk made a couple of racist comments a little while ago.
Therefore, this intensified the fury of those who were protesting and it led to more raised voices and shouting.

The protesters confronted Rittenhouse, asking him why he was working with someone who was racist.
A protestor highlighted Kirk’s comments, “He says that we shouldn’t celebrate June 10, we shouldn’t celebrate Martin Luther King day – we should be working those days – he called Kentaji Brown Jackson an affirmative action hire, he said all this nonsense about George Floyd, and he said he’d be scared if a Black pilot was on a plane.”

Apart from Kirk’s comments, the Turning Point USA website also proves that he could be racist. The organization says it wants to “restore traditional American values,” including patriotism, respect for life, and fiscal responsibility.
There are other comments on the website, saying things like “Capitalism is the most moral and proven economic system ever discovered” and that the constitution is the most exceptional political document.

After being confronted with these claims, Rittenhouse said he was not aware of Kirk’s comments. This caused the people in the room to boo him loudly as he tried to figure out the next thing to say.
Not long afterward, Rittenhouse walked off the stage and never looked back and the crowd cheered loudly at this.

Surprisingly, Rittenhouse claims that he didn’t walk off the stage because of the boos. He said that he planned to end the speech at that time, and that was why he walked off the stage. A protestor also took to X (formerly Twitter), showing a video of Rittenhouse where he says he didn’t walk off due to the intense booing and backlash.

As soon as the boos and criticism started, Rittenhouse quickly skipped to the question and answer section of his speech, according to Newsweek. That move further proved to protestors and viewers alike that the event did not end when it was supposed to but was rushed due to the criticism from the crowd.

During Rittenhouse’s speech at the University of Memphis, there was a heavy presence of law enforcement at the event. However, they did not interfere with the speech as it didn’t get violent or pose any serious threat to the safety of the people in attendance.
The University of Memphis’ Chief of Police also mentioned that their aim of being there was to prevent injuries and not to interfere with people’s freedom of speech.