by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News March 21, 2024
Administrators at the University of Memphis set out to sabotage a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) event featuring Kyle Rittenhouse, the organization said.
University officials issued last-minute changes in order for Wednesday’s event to proceed, and then leaked the information to protesters, TPUSA said.
The late change involved re-ticketing attendees through the university’s ticketing system on short notice, Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet told Breitbart News.
Kolvet explained that TPUSA uses its own ticketing system to prevent an event-sabotaging stunt commonly attempted by protesters, which involves reserving all the seats — robbing would-be attendees of the opportunity to obtain tickets — and then staging a walkout, leaving the venue empty during the event.
On Tuesday evening, Melanie Murry, the university’s legal counsel, and Melinda Carlson, vice president for student affairs, informed TPUSA staff and student leaders in a private meeting that the school would send an email at 9:00 a.m. informing registrants that their tickets were invalid and redirect them to a new link for re-ticketing.
But 30 minutes before that link was set to go live, the private information was leaked to protesters, TPUSA said.
“The protestors knew exactly what was going to happen before it was public knowledge,” Kolvet told Breitbart News. “There is no way these groups could have known the new ticketing timing and protocol without school administrators leaking that information.”
“This is unprecedented,” the TPUSA spokesperson continued. “We’ve never had to deal with a day of ticketing change, nor have we had to deal with an administration leaking our ticket information. … We are certainly used to hostile administrations, but never to this extent.”
University administrators also reduced the number of seats that TPUSA was allowed to reserve from more than fifty to just eight, the organization said.
The event featuring Rittenhouse proceeded on Wednesday night, with chaos ensuing on campus as a result. Rittenhouse briefly fled the stage at one point amid loud shrieks from protestors.
🚨: Chaos breaks out at the University of Memphis after BLM protesters chased down @TPUSA people who were leaving the Kyle Rittenhouse event. Police had to prevent the hostile crowd from physically attacking them.@FrontlinesTPUSA pic.twitter.com/PFr8Ccqr0n
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) March 21, 2024
TPUSA: University of Memphis tried to sabotage its event featuring Kyle Rittenhouse added by Editor Two on
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