brian levin

Less than 24 hours after a bullet whizzed across a Utah college campus and claimed the life of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, polarizing figures from across the political spectrum swiftly canceled public events.

Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) decided to postpone a North Carolina stop on the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour this weekend, while Trump allies Stephen K. Bannon and Rudolph W. Giuliani reportedly nixed plans for a New York gathering due to “increased security concerns.”

Popular leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who was set to debate Kirk at Dartmouth College later this month, told Politico he would “wait for the temperature to lower” before holding in-person events again.

Kirk’s assassination comes amid a spate of attacks on high-profile political figures — including two assassination attempts on President Trump — that security experts say will change the way large-scale political events are held, with open-air venues increasingly seen as risky.

“In the current threat environment, outdoor venues for political events should be avoided at all costs,” said Art Acevedo, the former head of the Houston and Miami police departments.

Even with a security apparatus as powerful as the U.S. Secret Service, experts say it is incredibly difficult to establish a firm perimeter at outdoor rallies with a large number of attendees. The gunman who opened fire on Trump in Butler, Pa., during the 2024 presidential campaign did so from more than 400 feet away. Kirk was shot from a distance of more than 400 feet with a powerful bolt-action rifle.

The suspected gunman, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was arrested Friday morning, authorities said. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said ammunition recovered and linked to the shooting had anti-fascist engravings on it.

A PBS/Marist Poll conducted last year found that 1 in 5 Americans believe violent acts would be justified to “get the country back on track.”

Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman was killed alongside her husband at their Minnesota home in June by a gunman allegedly motivated by conservative politics. In April, police arrested a man who allegedly tried to set fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence while the Democrat slept inside with his family.

Politicians aren’t the only ones being targeted. The killing in December in Manhattan of a healthcare industry executive turned suspected gunman Luigi Mangione into an object of public fascination, with some applauding the act of vigilantism.

With Americans increasingly viewing their political foes as enemy combatants, researchers who study extremist violence and event security professionals say Kirk’s killing on Wednesday could mark a turning point in how well-known individuals protect themselves.

“The bottom line is, for public political and other figures, it is increasingly difficult to protect them anywhere, but even more so in an outdoor environment because it’s getting harder to screen people and devices in those open spaces,” said Brian Levin, a former New York City police officer and professor emeritus at the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino.

Kirk was being protected by roughly a half-dozen Utah Valley University police officers and a handful of private security guards Wednesday, according to campus security officials. While that kind of presence might deter a close-quarters threat, snipers and other assailants with long-range capabilities would not be affected.

Typically, security professionals seek to create three “rings of protection” around the focus of a public event, according to Kent Moyer, founder of World Protection Group, an international security firm.

The inner ring often consists of barriers and security personnel meant to separate Kirk from the crowd immediately in front of him, not someone hundreds of yards away. In the middle ring, security guards positioned farther from the focus of the event monitor the temperature of the crowd and try to clock individuals acting strangely or becoming aggressive. An outer ring would serve to search bags and screen individuals before they enter the event.

It did not appear there was any screening of attendees at the event where Kirk was killed, and it is legal to openly carry firearms on a college campus in Utah.

Levin said he expects to see drones deployed at similar events in the future, an assessment seconded by Acevedo.

“If you’re going to do an outdoor event you better make sure you have some kind of surveillance of rooftops,” Levin said.

When doing risk assessments, Levin said, police and security professionals need to be cognizant that politicians themselves are no longer the sole targets for political violence.

What Levin called “idiosyncratic actors” are increasingly likely to lash out at those connected to political and policy positions they find unjust. While Kirk was not a politician himself, he was a beloved figure in Trump’s orbit, and his activist group, Turning Point USA, has often been credited with driving younger voters to support the president.

“It’s not just elected officials. It’s pundits, it includes corporate people, people involved in policy and education,” said Levin.

But a heavy security detail doesn’t come cheap.

While elected officials are guarded by a range of federal and state law enforcement agencies, political influencers like Kirk must rely on their own vendors as well as security personnel hired by the venues where they speak.

Levin warned that law enforcement assigned to political events should be on high alert for retaliatory attacks in the near future, given the “dehumanizing” rhetoric some have taken up in the wake of Kirk’s killing.

Specifically, he pointed to Trump’s Oval Office remarks late Wednesday blaming Kirk’s death on “the radical left,” despite the fact that Kirk’s killer had not been identified at that time and federal law enforcement officials had not disclosed a motive in the shooting.

Trump also rattled off a number of attacks on Republicans during his remarks, while making no mention of Hortman’s slaying, the 2022 attack on the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — all violent incidents carried out by people who espoused right-wing political values.

“More and more people across the ideological spectrum, though more concentrated on the far hard right, think violence is justified to achieve political outcomes,” Levin said.

The morning after a man hurled Molotov cocktails at a crowd of Jewish Americans in Boulder, Colo., Rabbi Noah Farkas celebrated the first day of Shavuot in the usual way: He read the Torah about the giving of the Ten Commandments to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai.

But Farkas, the president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, said what was supposed to be a holiday celebrating the establishment of law and order was marred by the weekend violence.

“The community is terrified,” Farkas said outside Temple Ramat Zion in Northridge.

“It’s remarkable to me that those who want to assault us are coming up with ever new and novel ways to do harm to us and to try to kill us.”

Twelve people between the ages of 52 and 88 were burned in the Colorado attack. A man — identified by law enforcement as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, an Egyptian citizen who had overstayed his tourist visa — used a “makeshift flamethrower” to attack demonstrators marching peacefully in a weekly event supporting Israeli hostages in Gaza.

According to an FBI affidavit, the attacker yelled “Free Palestine!” — the same cry uttered by the suspect in a May 21 incident in which two Israeli Embassy aides were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington.

The back-to-back attacks have unnerved many Jewish Americans — particularly as they come just a month after a man set fire to the residence of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish. A suspect later said the fire was a response to Shapiro’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza.

“We are in a completely new era for antisemitic violence in the United States,” said Brian Levin, the founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino. “We are now at a point of extraordinary national security concern with respect to protecting Jewish communities across the U.S. and worldwide.”

Anti-Jewish hate crimes, Levin said, hit record levels nationally in 2023 and 2024. In 2023, the last year that the FBI has available data, anti-Jewish hate crimes rose 63% to a record 1,832 incidents, Levin said. Last year, religious hate crimes were up significantly in major U.S. cities, Levin said, with anti-Muslim hate crimes rising 18%, and anti-Jewish ones rising for the fourth consecutive year, up 12% to a new record.

“Over the last decade, we’re seeing more mass casualties attacks and they’re becoming more frequent and more fatal,” Levin said. “It used to be that anti-Jewish hate crimes, unlike a lot of other hate crimes, were much more tied to property damage and intimidation. Now were seeing just a slew of high intensity types of attacks.”

The attacks in the U.S. come as United Nations officials and aid groups warn that the situation in Gaza has become increasingly dire, with Palestinians in Gaza on the brink of famine as Israel continues its 19-month military offensive against Hamas militants.

Two weeks ago, Israel agreed to pause a nearly three-month blockade and allow a “basic quantity” of food into Gaza to avert a “hunger crisis” and prevent mass starvation.

On Sunday, Gaza health officials and witnesses said more than 30 people were reported killed and 170 wounded as Palestinians flocked to an aid distribution center in the southern Gaza, hoping to obtain food. The circumstances were disputed. Witnesses said Israeli forces fired on crowds about 1,000 yards from an aid site run by a U.S.-backed foundation, but Israel’s military denied its forces fired at civilians.

Levin attributed the rise in violence in the U.S. to a number of factors, including the Israel-Hamas war and the “increasingly unregulated freewheeling online environment.” Horrifying imagery coming out of the Middle East, Levin said, was amplified on social media by those who ascribed responsibility to anyone who believes Israel has a right to exist, or is Jewish, or wanted hostages to be released.

“What happens is angry and unstable people not only find a home for their aggression, but a honed amplification and direction to it that is polished by this cesspool of conspiracism and antisemitism,” Levin said.

In Los Angeles’ Pico-Robertson neighborhood, the mood was subdued Monday as a smattering of Orthodox families made their way to services to observe Shavuot. Many kosher establishments were closed and armed guards flanked entrances to larger Jewish centers and temples.

On Pico Boulevard, a 25-year-old Orthodox man carried a prayer shawl close to his chest as he headed to a service at a temple just before noon. He had slept just a few hours after staying up all night reading the Torah.

Despite the news of the attack in Colorado, the man — who identified himself as Laser — carried an easy smile.

“It’s a joyous holiday,” he said.

The Colorado attack was horrifying, he said, but it was not anything new and paled in comparison with the feeling that descended on the Jewish community in Los Angeles and across the world after Oct. 7.

“It’s never good to see or read about those types of things,” he said. “We just pray for the ultimate redemption, for peace here, peace abroad, peace around the world.”

At Tiferet Teman Synagogue, a man standing at the door repeatedly apologized to a Times reporter, saying that he would not discuss the event that happened in Colorado.

“I’m not going to invite politics into the community,” he said. “God bless you all.”

Others observing the holiday declined to have their photo taken and many of the businesses were closed. A quiet buzz pervaded Pico Boulevard as Orthodox members of the community made their way to services, many of them trying their best to avoid eye contact.

A Persian Jewish man from Iran said he has always been hesitant about religious violence. The man, who declined to give his name, was on his way to service.

“You always have to keep your eyes open,” he said. “No matter where you are in the world.”

Noa Tishby, an Israeli-born author who lives in L.A. and is Israel’s former special envoy for combating antisemitism and delegitimization, said that many Jewish people were afraid to congregate.

“The Jewish community feels under siege,” she said. “People are removing their mezuzahs from their doorsteps. They’re removing Jewish insignia from themselves, removing their Star of David or hiding it. They’re afraid to go to Jewish events.”

Tishby said that the Colorado attacker appeared to be motivated by antisemitism: the views and beliefs of the victims didn’t matter.

“What if that particular woman that man tried to burn alive yesterday, what if she was a Bibi hater, would that appease him?” Tishby asked, using a nickname for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The answer is no. He doesn’t know what her political opinions are in America or in Israel. He just burned her because she was Jewish.”

Antisemitism, Tishby argued, was a shape-shifting conspiracy theory that had evolved into anti-Zionism.

“What happened is that the word Zionist is now a code name for Jew,” she said. “We have been warning for decades that anti-Zionism is the new face of antisemitism…. They’re taking all the hate, everything that’s wrong in the world right now, and they’re pinning it on the Jewish state.”

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass was quick to denounce the attack Sunday as “an atrocious affront to the very fabric of our society and our beliefs here in Los Angeles.” In a statement, she said she would call an emergency meeting at City Hall addressing safety and security across the city immediately after Shavuot.

“LAPD is conducting extra patrols at houses of worship and community centers throughout LA. Anti-Semitism will not be tolerated in this city,” she said.

After speaking to Bass on Sunday, Farkas said that he planned to meet in person with the mayor on Wednesday after the Shavuot holiday to have a “real, frank conversation” about antisemitism.

“There is a cycle that we go through where our hearts are shattered and yet we have to keep enduring,” Farkas said. “And it makes us call into question the commitment of our wider community and our government to the safety of the Jewish community.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

After gunfire erupted outside a humanitarian aid event for Gaza at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington late Wednesday, Yoni Kalin and his wife, JoJo, watched as museum security rushed attendees away from the doors and others who had just left came tumbling back in.

Among those who came in, Kalin said, was a man who appeared agitated, who Kalin and others in the museum first took for a protester, and who “walked right up” to police the moment they arrived, Kalin said.

“‘I did this for Gaza. Free Palestine,’” Kalin recalled the man telling the officers in an interview with The Times Thursday. “He went into his, ‘Free Palestine. There’s only one solution. Intifada revolution’ — you know, the usual chants.”

Kalin, a 31-year-old Washington, D.C., resident who works in biotech, said he still had no idea that two Israeli Embassy employees had been fatally shot outside. So when police started to pull the man away and he dropped a red kaffiyeh, or traditional Arab headdress, Kalin picked it up and tried to return it to him, he said.

The event that night — which Kalin’s wife had helped organize with the American Jewish Committee and the humanitarian aid groups Multifaith Alliance and IsraAID — had been “all about bridge building and humanitarian aid and support,” Kalin said, and he figured returning a protester’s kaffiyeh was in line with that ethos.

“I regret that now,” Kalin said Thursday morning, after a nearly restless night. “I regret touching it.”

Like so many other mourners across the nation, Kalin said he was having a hard time processing the “surreal, horrific” attack, and its occurring at an event aimed at boosting collaboration and understanding between Israelis, Palestinians and Americans.

“I don’t think him shouting ‘Free Palestine’ or ‘Free Gaza’ is going to actually help Palestinians or Gazans in this situation, especially given that he murdered people that are actually trying to help on the ground or contribute to these aid efforts,” Kalin said of the shooter. “It’s a really sick irony.”

Israeli officials identified the two victims as employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Yaron Lischinsky was an Israeli citizen and research assistant, and Sarah Milgrim was a U.S. citizen who organized visits and missions to Israel. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said the two were a couple, and that Lischinsky had recently purchased a ring and planned to propose to Milgrim next week in Jerusalem.

U.S. authorities called the shooting an “act of terror” and identified the suspect as Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago. Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said Rodriguez was seen pacing outside the museum before the shooting, and was later detained by security after walking inside.

Dan Bongino, deputy director of the FBI, said the agency was “aware of certain writings allegedly authored by the suspect, and we hope to have updates as to the authenticity very soon.” He said Rodriguez had been interviewed by law enforcement early Thursday morning, and that the FBI did not believe there was any ongoing threat to the public.

President Trump, who spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, and U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi have both promised justice in the shooting.

“These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!” Trump posted on social media. “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”

Israel Bachar, Israel’s consul general for the U.S. Pacific Southwest, based in Los Angeles, said security has been increased at consul facilities and at other Jewish institutions, with the help of American law enforcement and local police.

The shooting comes amid Israel’s latest major offensive in the Gaza Strip in a war since Oct. 7, 2023, when Israel was attacked by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The attack, launched from Gaza, killed 1,200 people, while Hamas claimed about 250 hostages. Israel’s response has devastated Gaza and killed more than 53,000 people, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi visits the site of the shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum on Thursday.

(Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images)

About 90% of the territory’s roughly 2 million population has been displaced. Much of urban Gaza has been bombed out and destroyed, and Israel has blocked huge amounts of aid from entering the territory, sparking a massive hunger crisis. Protests of Israel’s actions have spread around the world and in the U.S., which is a major arms supplier to Israel.

Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, said that for decades, antisemitic and anti-Muslim attacks have increased in the U.S. when conflicts arise in the Middle East — and Israel’s current war is no exception.

“With the worst conflict the region has seen in years, with a horrifying loss of life and moving images of the suffering taking place in Gaza, what ends up happening is the soil gets soft for antisemitism,” Levin said.

In recent years especially, the spread of such imagery — and of misinformation — on social media has produced “a rabbit-hole where people can get increasingly radicalized,” and where calls for retribution against anyone even tangentially connected to a disfavored group can drown out messages for peace, compassion and aid, Levin said.

“We have unfortunately been caught in a time when the peaceful interfaith voices have been washed over like a tsunami, leaving a vacuum that allows conflict overseas to generate bigotry and violence here,” he said. “We see that again and again — we saw that with 9/11 — where communities become stereotyped and broad-brushed and labeled in certain niches as legitimate target for aggression, and that feeds upon itself like a fire, where you end up having totally innocent people being murdered.”

Several organizations have described Lischinsky and Milgrim as being committed to peace and humanitarian aid work. Kalin said many of the people at the museum event were — and will continue to be.

“This act of violence just makes me want to build bridges even stronger. I think we need to strengthen the coalition. We need more Muslims, we need more Christians, we need more Israelis, we need more Palestinians,” Kalin said. “We need people that believe that peace is the answer — and that hate and violence isn’t going to solve this issue.”