Counter-protestors defend Rittenhouse, drown out demonstrators with ‘Let’s Go Brandon’
A cadre of left-leaning Arizona State University students furious over Kyle Rittenhouse’s association with the school held a protest Wednesday against his possible re-enrollment as a student.
Chanting “ASU shame on you” and “killer Kyle off our campus,” campus groups that organized the demonstration included MEChA, Students for Socialism, Students for Justice in Palestine and the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition.
ASU had previously stated Rittenhouse was enrolled as an online, non-degree seeking student, but this week said he was not enrolled.
That did not stop the protest from taking place in the wake of the mid-November verdict that found Rittenhouse not guilty on all murder charges after shooting three protesters during rioting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year.
The student protestors demanded Rittenhouse not be re-admitted, chanting “no justice, no peace” and “lock him up,” the State Press campus newspaper reports.
Freelance journalist Drew Hernandez, who filmed the Kenosha riots and testified during Rittenhouse’s trial, posted several videos of the ASU protest Wednesday.
“He’s a white supremacist killer, he’s a vigilante,” one apparent student leader is seen saying in a microphone to the crowd, which cheered in response.
“He’s a descendent of white Americans who killed black and brown people” who were “also acquitted of all charges if we have read history.”
“Kyle Rittenhouse didn’t get a guilty verdict because he is f**king white.”
ARIZONA: Kyle Rittenhouse didn’t get a guilty verdict because he was F*cking WHITE!”
“Kyle… killed black and brown people”
ASU socialists protest Kyle Rittenhouse attending online classes at the university even though he is no longer enrolled at the school pic.twitter.com/StRU30QMRo
— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) December 1, 2021
ARIZONA: ASU socialists chant “ASU SHAME ON YOU!” outside of the ASU Foundation Fulton Center
A Chad Officer appears to not be having it
ASU socialists protest Kyle Rittenhouse attending online classes at the university even though he is no longer enrolled at the school pic.twitter.com/ZaLzHuAgnW
— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) December 2, 2021
ARIZONA: ASU socialists chant “KILLER KYLE OFF OUR CAMPUS” to protest Kyle Rittenhouse attending online classes at the university even though he is no longer enrolled at the school pic.twitter.com/SCBW8w4tcw
— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) December 2, 2021
ARIZONA: ASU socialists proudly holding “DEATH 2 AMERICA” signs to protest Kyle Rittenhouse attending online classes at the university even though he is no longer enrolled at the school pic.twitter.com/hVaVtphHwz
— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) December 1, 2021
The rally against Rittenhouse was met with counter-protestors who defended the embattled and acquitted teenager, supported his innocence with their own chants, and heckled the student demonstrators.
They yelled out “self defense” and “innocent.” At one point they even drowned out the protest with a “Let’s go Brandon” chant, which is a misnomer for “F**k Joe Biden.”
They held signs with slogans such as “criminals love gun control,” “know your laws” and “facts don’t care about your feelings.”
ARIZONA: ASU socialists get drowned out by conservative counter protesters chanting “LET’S GO BRANDON!” at an ASU socialist organized gathering to protest Kyle Rittenhouse attending online classes at the university even though he is no longer enrolled at the school pic.twitter.com/aV4MGXkm12
— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) December 2, 2021
ARIZONA: Kari Lake supporters and conservatives CRASH the ASU socialist’s protest against Kyle Rittenhouse attending online classes at the university even though he is no longer enrolled at the school pic.twitter.com/WlENZjckNK
— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) December 2, 2021
Many of the counter-protestors were there at the behest of Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for governor.
Team Kari was out in full force today at ASU to support Kyle Rittenhouse!
My stance on the 2nd Amendment is as simple as it gets:
Shall. NOT. Be. Infringed. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/WsEzL68ZU4
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 2, 2021
Jay Thorne, an ASU spokesman, declined to comment on the rally in a statement to the Associated Press.
But former Republican Rep. Matt Salmon, who is also running for Arizona governor, told AP the rally represents an “ongoing harassment campaign” of an innocent person and that the university should be more vocal in its defense of Rittenhouse.
“It is time for the far-left to respect our judicial system, and it is time for administrators at ASU to stand up for the rule of law and protect their students from these thugs,” Salmon said in a statement.
But the university faces pressure from the student activists, who have issued a list of demands that includes that campus leaders “release a statement against white supremacy and racist murderer Kyle Rittenhouse.”
They have also demanded that ASU make the multicultural center a “safe space” from white people.
The demand references an incident at ASU from September during which a pair of black female students came upon two white male peers in the campus multicultural center and berated them for the invasion of their “space” in an incident that was caught on film and went viral.
The State Press reports that one of the instigating students in that incident was Mastaani Qureshi, co-president of the Women’s Coalition and a leader in the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition.
“After the video went viral, Qureshi was found in violation of ABOR’s student code of contact for ‘interfering with University activities,'” the student newspaper reports.
“ASU told me to be civil,” Qureshi said during Wednesday’s protest. “I was one of the students who got viral in the multicultural video incident. I got death threats and rape threats and ASU did nothing. ASU told me to be civil – ASU, what is civility? Is it killing two unarmed people with an AR-15 civility to you?”
Student organizers celebrated the demonstration at its conclusion.
Pictures from our rally below, we will not be deterred by fascist dead-enders https://t.co/Ec0oV5eiiE pic.twitter.com/iAt9hqHeZU
— Students for Socialism ASU 🚩 (@SFSASU) December 2, 2021
“We will not be deterred by fascist dead-enders,” Students for Socialism ASU posted on Twitter.
MORE: Leftist Arizona State U. groups demand Kyle Rittenhouse be booted from campus
MAIN IMAGE: Twitter screenshot/YouTube screenshot
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