Campus community prepares for Kyle Rittenhouse appearance at WKU Wednesday

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – At Western Kentucky University the Downing Student Union’s night class is expected to be filled as students and the community are set to hear from Kyle Rittenhouse. He was acquitted of all charges after he shot and killed two men during a protest in Wisconsin in 2020. WKU Police are teaming up with local law enforcement to ramp up security ahead of this event.

“You always plan for the worst, but we live in a great community and it’s a great campus. So we just want to make sure that we have some things in place to keep everybody safe, allow them to exercise their freedom of speech and just watch out for those folks that may be outliers, that could be causing problems,” WKU Police Chief Mitchell Walker says.

Before Rittenhouse takes the podium, a local group is set to peacefully protest his appearance.

“This was mostly per the requests of the students… A lot of students had reached out to us and wanted us to put together the event and put together the protest to bring them together because they felt like their voices weren’t being heard,” says Summer Shannon, President of the BG Freedom Walkers.

News 40 reached out to Turning Point USA, the group sponsoring this event. We have yet to hear back from them.

The Freedom Walkers say they will meet outside of Diddle Arena on Wednesday and begin protesting around 6:30 p.m. before Rittenhouse appears at 7 p.m.

We will keep you updated throughout the night as the event goes on.