Right-wing website Gateway Pundit's White House correspondent Lucian Wintrich was arrested by University of Connecticut campus police on Tuesday evening, BuzzFeed News reports.
Wintrich, who was on campus to speak at an event titled "It's OK To Be White," was met by a crowd of protesters, according to The Hartford Courant. The outlet reports that, after a heated exchange of words with members of the audience, Wintrich left the podium, entered the crowd, and "grabbed" a woman. It's unclear whether or not she is a student at UConn.
According to The Courant, audience members rushed to the woman's defence and pushed Wintrich away from her until police arrived and removed him.
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Tuesday's events are hardly the first time that chaos has broken out on a college campus in response to a far-right speaker. Earlier this year there was a shooting at University of Washington in Seattle during an appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos, and Ann Coulter's speech at UC Berkeley was canceled altogether due to safety concerns.
Audience members captured videos of the altercation.
The moment, about half an hour ago, that Gateway Pundit blogger Lucian Wintrich appears to accost a woman during a speech at UConn pic.twitter.com/R4Dd9eY1v4
— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) November 29, 2017
BREAKING: @lucianwintrich appears to attack a @UCONN student during speech after she took something off podium. pic.twitter.com/WAcNYAak7c
— Kevin Galliford (@KallMeKG) November 29, 2017
"Video of the altercation shows that the guest appeared to remove paperwork from the lectern where Mr. Wintrich was speaking, and that he followed the woman into the audience, where the altercation occurred," UConn spokesperson Stephanie Reitz said in a statement to The Courant.
#BREAKING massive fight erupts at "It's ok to be White speech" at @UConn @WTNH #CTnews pic.twitter.com/cDQmsqZlYC
— Mario Boone (@MarioBooneTV) November 29, 2017
The pro-Trump blog Gateway Pundit is known for publishing debunked conspiracy theories — most notably the story that Seth Rich's murder was ordered by Hillary Clinton in retaliation for his (nonexistent) connection to WikiLeaks.
Hartford Courant reporter Rebecca Lurye, who was on the scene, posted to Twitter that Wintrich was escorted out at approximately 10 p.m. EST and that the crowd began to disperse at that time.
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