BREAKING: TPUSA Staffers EXPOSED In HORRIFIC New Crime
Charlie Kirk built Turning Point USA into one of the most influential conservative youth organizations in America. Its members have spent years targeting professors, especially those who teach LGBTQ+ topics, hunting them down on campus and confronting them on camera.
In October 2023, two of those members cornered a gay writing instructor at Arizona State University, accused him of being a pedophile, and left him bloodied on the pavement. Six months later, both admitted guilt in court.
What Happened
David Boyles teaches writing at Arizona State University and a course on LGBTQ+ youth in pop culture and politics. He co-founded Drag Story Hour Arizona. That work made him a target on Turning Point USA’s “professor watch list.”
On October 11, 2023, as Boyles left his classroom on ASU’s Tempe campus, two Turning Point USA affiliates, Kalen D’Almeida and Braden Ellis, approached him. Ellis filmed with a phone camera while D’Almeida followed Boyles and peppered him with questions.
“David, you can’t run. It’s best if you just talk to me about why you want to push sodomy onto young people,” D’Almeida said as Boyles tried to walk away in silence. “You would like to see a different America exist where little boys are sodomized by people like you.”
Boyles did not respond. He kept walking.
What the Security Footage Showed
Turning Point USA posted its own video of the incident online. That footage cuts off abruptly, right as Boyles reaches toward the camera. The organization claimed the phone had “a disconnected wire that caused the video to cut out immediately,” and used the edited clip to fundraise off a narrative that Boyles had assaulted their staff.
Campus security footage, released separately by ASU, showed what actually happened next: Boyles reached toward the camera, seemingly trying to stop the recording, and D’Almeida immediately shoved him to the ground. Boyles hit his head on the stone plaza and suffered a visible facial injury.
“My physical injuries are relatively minor and I’m doing ok,” Boyles wrote afterward. “But I’m also feeling angry, violated, embarrassed, and despairing at the fact that we have come to normalize this kind of harassment and violence against anyone who tries to support LGBTQ+ youth.”
ASU police opened an investigation into the incident as a potential bias or prejudice-motivated crime.
Turning Point USA’s Response Was to Attack the Victim
Rather than address what its own security footage and the university’s cameras showed, Turning Point USA went on offense.
The organization initially claimed its “team members did absolutely nothing wrong” and promised to “vigorously defend them,” insisting that video evidence would prove Boyles was the aggressor. Turning Point framed the confrontation as legitimate journalism, describing D’Almeida and Ellis as a “reporter” and “cameraman” for its online show “FRONTLINES.”
D’Almeida and Ellis were charged with misdemeanors: D’Almeida with assault, harassment, and disorderly conduct; Ellis with harassment. Both pleaded not guilty in December 2023.
Then They Admitted It
Four months after publicly insisting their staff had done nothing wrong, both men signed deferred prosecution agreements admitting guilt.
Court documents obtained by 12News show both D’Almeida and Ellis acknowledged their conduct as part of a court-ordered diversion program. “I acknowledge that this admission of guilt may be used against me if I do not successfully complete the diversion program and I decide to have a trial in this matter,” the signed agreement reads.
They were not exonerated by the “clear video evidence” Turning Point promised would vindicate them. They admitted guilt to avoid prosecution.
This Was Not an Isolated Incident
D’Almeida and Ellis had a documented pattern of confronting professors and young academics across the country before this happened.
In April 2023, the same pair followed and questioned a University of Arizona professor who specializes in queer studies, in a confrontation that went viral online. In July, D’Almeida traveled to Nebraska to confront a 23-year-old.
Boyles was not the first target. He was simply the one who ended up with a head injury and security footage that contradicted the organization’s public story.
What ASU Said
ASU President Michael Crow defended Boyles publicly, writing to faculty and staff that Boyles is “part of an academic community that appropriately engages” students across “the entire spectrum of human experience and expression.”
The Bottom Line
Two Turning Point USA affiliates hunted down a gay college professor on his own campus, accused him on camera of being a pedophile who wanted to “sodomize” children, and shoved him to the ground hard enough to draw blood. The organization’s official response was to call their staff blameless and paint the professor as the aggressor, complete with a fundraising push built on selectively edited footage.
When the full security video came out, it told a different story than the one Turning Point USA tried to sell. And when it came time to stand in front of a judge, both men admitted they were guilty.
Turning Point USA built its brand accusing LGBTQ+ educators of grooming children. In this case, its own employees left one bloodied on the ground and then quietly admitted they were wrong.