'It Has Everything to Do With Race': Protesters Clash Outside Kyle Rittenhouse Event

Demonstrators clashed at Western Kentucky University, in Bowling Green, on Wednesday, March 27, outside a student event hosting Kyle Rittenhouse, who famously shot and killed two people at a Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest in 2020.

The university chapter of the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA hosted the on-campus event, where Rittenhouse was set to speak “about the importance of the Second Amendment and the lies of BLM.”

In 2020, Rittenhouse shot three people at a BLM protest in Wisconsin, killing two of them. He pleaded self-defense and was acquitted in 2021.

Footage taken by Brendan Gutenschwager shows protesters outside the speech’s venue holding signs reading “Fascists Not Welcome in BG,” amid loud chanting and a heated exchange between two men, with one shouting, “It has nothing to do with race.”

The other responds, “It has everything to do with race!" Credit: Brendan Gutenschwager via Storyful

Video transcript

- Everybody [INAUDIBLE].

- Make it make sense. Make it make sense. It's the Second Amendment? OK.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- Does it give Kyle the right to kill two people?

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- Does it give him the right to kill two people?

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- How does it have to do with--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- How does it have to do with--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- Because you have your Second Amendment rights.

- Has nothing to do with race.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- It does not give you a right--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- Get over yourself.

- Hey, OK, so look, look, they've-- OK.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- I got you.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- Let me help you out here.

- Do something.

- Is it OK if I come to your state, right--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- Let me find out. Let me find out she--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- --going shoot you.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- Is that OK?

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- I appreciate it.

- And I got--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- You go to go.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- OK. So let me--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]