Fight breaks out during free speech event at UCONN

November 29, 2017 7:12 am

By: News Staff

Email: news@abc6.com
Twitter: @ABC6

STORRS, Conn. (WLNE) — The main speaker of a free speech event at the University of Connecticut was arrested after a fight broke out Tuesday.

Conservative commentator Lucian Wintrich, 29, spoke in front of crowded room during a Republican event entitled “It’s OK to be White.”

Video shows a woman walking up to the podium and grabbing Wintrich’s script. He then followed her into the audience and that is when the altercation ensued.

Windows were broken amid the chaos and officers pulled Wintrich out of the room for allegedly assaulting a student.

“It’s obscene that a person that’s supposed to be a White House correspondent, he’s supposed to be representing our country and what our democracy and freedom of the press is supposed to stand for act like that, it’s obscene,” said a witness.

Wintrich is the White House correspondent for the right-wing blog “The Gateway Pundit.”

College Democrats also sponsored a discussion before the speech so the campus community could express their views.

In a statement, UCONN says they do not bar speakers on the basis of content. Free speech, like academic freedom, is one of the university’s bedrock principles.