trich, White House correspondent for the far-right, pro-Trump website Gateway Pundit, was arrested by UConn police Tuesday evening after a walk-out of his event, “It Is OK To Be white,” gave way to an altercation.
At one point, Wintrich left his place at the podium in Andre Schenker Lecture Hall, rushed up the steps of the auditorium and grabbed a woman. The crowd reacted quickly, swelling with pushes and shoves down the steps until police led Wintrich out into the hallway and then into a restroom.
“Video of the altercation shows that the guest appeared to remove paperwork from the lecturn where Mr. Wintrich was speaking, and that he followed the woman into the audience, where the altercation occurred,” UConn spokesperson Stephanie Reitz said.
A second altercation followed involving a man who had stood next to Wintrich throughout the event, filming and adding commentary. He was also led away by police, though he was not arrested, according to Reitz.
“There are no other arrests and no injuries,” she said.
Reitz said Wintrich was held by UConn police and would be charged Tuesday evening, though his charges were not immediately available.
For one hour after the altercation, about 100 students waited outside the lecture hall to see Wintrich brought out by police. When he was ultimately brought out a back entrance and placed into a police cruiser, many of the students chased after it.
The events unfolded an hour into Wintrich’s planned speech, which was continually interrupted by members of the packed auditorium who chanted “Go home, nazi” and “Black lives matter,” and shouted jokes and jabs at the political commentator.
Wintrich responded to the crowd of 350 with remarks of his own, rarely finishing a sentence from his speech without pausing to talk back or being drowned out by his audience.
Chants of “walk out” led to most of the attendees standing and filtering out the back of the auditorium, at which point several attendees walked toward the podium instead and began speaking and yelling to Wintrich. The altercation followed.
Video of the incident appears to show the victim grabbing a piece of paper from the podium and walking back up the steps before Wintrich wraps his arms around her.
The speech sponsored by the UConn College Republicans, who declined to comment before and after the event. A Facebook event for the talk said Wintrich would “discuss identity politics, liberal victimhood, anti-conservative bias and other hot-button issues.”