The governor of Utah has been criticised after he said he prayed that the man suspected of shooting Charlie Kirk “wouldn’t be one of us.” In Friday’s briefing, US officials revealed that 22-year-old Tyler Robinson had been arrested and that he had engraved messages on bullets.
Published On 13 Sep 202513 Sep 2025
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A coordinated online doxxing campaign has emerged in the wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s killing, targeting academics, teachers, government employees and others who have posted critical remarks about him.
At least 15 people have been fired or suspended from their jobs after discussing the killing online, according to a Reuters tally on Saturday based on interviews, public statements and local press reports. The total includes journalists, academic workers and teachers.
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On Friday, a junior Nasdaq employee was fired over her posts related to Kirk.
Others have been subjected to torrents of online abuse or seen their offices flooded with calls demanding they be fired, part of a surge in right-wing rage that has followed the killing.
Chaya Raichik, who runs the right-wing “Libs of TikTok” account and is known for her anti-immigrant activism, is at the forefront of the campaign. She has shared names, photos and workplace details of individuals who expressed little sympathy for Kirk’s death.
In one case, Raichik targeted a lecturer at California State University, Monterey Bay, who reportedly wrote in an Instagram story: “I cannot muster much sympathy, truly. People are going to argue ‘He has a family, he has a wife and kids.’ What about all the kids, the many broken families from the over 258 school shootings 2020–present?”
Raichik reposted the lecturer’s photo, accusing him of mocking Kirk’s assassination.
The lecturer has not commented, but several teachers across the United States – including in California, Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas – have been suspended or dismissed over similar online remarks. Union leaders condemned Kirk’s killing, but also warned against punishing educators for free speech.
Raichik has also targeted members of the military. One Coast Guard employee is under investigation after posting a meme saying he did not care about Kirk’s death. A former Twitter worker was also singled out for criticising the New York Yankees for holding a moment of silence for Kirk.
A newly registered site, “Expose Charlie’s Murderers,” has 41 names of people it alleges were “supporting political violence online” and claims to be working on a backlog of more than 20,000 submissions.
A Reuters review of the screenshots and comments posted to the site shows that some of those featured joked about or celebrated Kirk’s death. One was quoted as saying, “He got what he deserved”, and others were quoted providing variations on “karma’s a bitch.” Others, however, were critical of the far-right figure while explicitly denouncing violence.
Some institutions have already taken disciplinary action. Middle Tennessee State University dismissed an assistant dean after she wrote: “Looks like ol’Charlie spoke his fate into existence. Hate begets hate. ZERO sympathy.” The comment referred to Kirk’s 2023 defence of gun violence, in which he argued: “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment … That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”
Even quoting that remark has been enough for some to be targeted.
Some Republicans want to go further still and have proposed deporting Kirk’s critics from the US, suing them into penury or banning them from social media for life.
“Prepare to have your whole future professional aspirations ruined if you are sick enough to celebrate his death,” said conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, a prominent ally of Trump and one of several far-right figures who are organising digital campaigns on X to ferret out and publicly shame Kirk’s critics.
The wave of firings and suspensions has raised concerns over free expression, while far-right activists celebrate what they see as a campaign of accountability.
US lawmaker Clay Higgins said in a post on X that anyone who “ran their mouth with their smart**s hatred celebrating the heinous murder of that beautiful young man” needed to be “banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER.”
The US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said on the same site that he had been disgusted to “see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action.”
Republicans’ anger at those disrespecting Kirk’s legacy contrasts with the mockery some of the same figures – including Kirk – directed at past victims of political violence.
For example, when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was clubbed over the head by a hammer-wielding conspiracy theorist during a break-in at their San Francisco home shortly before the 2022 midterm elections, Higgins posted a photo making fun of the attack. He later deleted the post.
Loomer falsely suggested that Paul Pelosi and his assailant were lovers, calling the brutal assault on the octogenarian a “booty call gone wrong.”
Speaking to a television audience a few days after the attack, a grinning Kirk called for the intruder to be sprung from jail.
“If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out,” he said.
Professor Kevin Waite had just finished a seminar on the run-up to the American Civil War on Friday morning when a student cautiously raised her hand.
“Can I ask about the Charlie Kirk situation?” she said in Waite’s classroom at the University of Texas at Dallas.
The student, he said, wondered whether recent events carried any echoes of the past. Hyperbolic comparisons between modern political conflict and the horrific bloodshed of past centuries have previously been the stuff of doomsday prepper threads on Reddit, but this week’s shooting made it a mainstream topic of conversation.
While cautioning that the country is nowhere near as fractured as it was when the Civil War erupted, Waite and other scholars of the period say they do increasingly see parallels.
“Our current political moment is really resonating with the 1850s,” the historian said.
He and other scholars note similarities between the deployment of troops to American cities, widespread disillusionment with the Supreme Court, and spasms of political violence — especially from disaffected young men.
“What we call polarization, they called sectionalism, and in the 1850s there was a growing sense that the sections of the country were pulling apart,” said Matthew Pinsker of Dickinson University.
Even before Kirk’s alleged assassin was publicly identified as a 22-year-old who left antifascist messages, President Trump blamed the shooting on “radical left political violence.”
Conservative influencers amplified the rhetoric, with Trump ally Laura Loomer posting on X, “More people will be murdered if the Left isn’t crushed with the power of the state.”
Violence was far more organized and widespread in the late 1850s, historians caution. Congressmen regularly pulled knives and pistols on one another. Mobs brawled in the streets over the Fugitive Slave Law. Radical abolitionist John Brown and his sons hacked five men to death with swords.
But some aspects of modern politics are worryingly similar, scholars said.
“What almost scares me more than the violence itself is the reaction to it,” Waite said. “It was paranoia, the perception that this violence was unstoppable, that really sent the nation spiraling toward Civil War in 1860 and ’61.”
Top of mind for Waite was the paramilitary political movement known as the Wide Awakes, hundreds of thousands of of torch-toting, black-capped abolitionist youths who took to the street out of frustration with their Republican representatives.
“There was this perception that antislavery Republicans hadn’t been sufficiently aggressive,” Waite said. Wide Awakes, he said, believed “that it was the slaveholders that were really pushing their agenda much more forcefully, much more violently, and antislavery [politicians] couldn’t just sit down and take it anymore.”
Most Democratic politicians of the era were fighting to expand slavery to the Western territories, extend federal power to claw back people who’d escaped it, and enshrine slaveholders rights to travel freely with those they held in bondage.
The Wide Awakes struck terror in their hearts.
“For their political opponents, it was a really scary spectacle,” Waite said. “Any time a cotton gin burned down in the South, they pointed to the Wide Awakes and other more radical antislavery Northerners and said, ‘This is arson.’”
For Waite, the Wide Awakes can be compared to an antebellum antifa, while the paramilitaries of the South were more like modern Proud Boys.
“The South was highly militarized,” he said. “Every adult white man was part of a local militia. It was like a social club, so it was easy to take these local militias and turn them into anti-abolitionist defense units.”
Still, incursions by abolitionists into the South were rare. Incursions by slave powers into the North were common, and routinely enforced by armed soldiers.
Legal scholars have already noted striking similarities between Trump’s use of the military to aid his mass deportation effort. The Trump administration has leaned on constitutional maneuvers used to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act — a divisive law that empowered slave catchers from the South to make arrests in Northern states — in legal arguments to justify the use of troops in immigration enforcement.
“I argue it was the fugitive crisis, more than the territorial crisis, that drove the coming of the Civil War,” Pinsker said. “The resistance in the North essentially made the Fugitive Slave Law dead-letter. They broke the enforcement of that law through legal, political and sometimes protest resistance.”
Many Northern states had passed “personal liberty laws” to prevent Black people from being snatched off the streets and returned to slavery in the South — a move Waite and others compare to sanctuary laws across the country today.
“The attempt to uphold these personal liberty laws and simultaneously the government’s attempts to take these Black fugitives led to violence, and to perceptions that the so-called slave-power was the aggressor,” Waite said.
By the late 1850s, Northerners were equally fed up with the Supreme Court, which under Chief Justice Roger B. Taney was seen as a rubber stamp for slaveholders’ goals.
“The Supreme Court in the 1850s was dominated by Southerners, mostly Southern Democrats, and they were pro-slavery,” said Michael J. Birkner of Gettysburg University. “I think the Dred Scott case and the court being on one side is absolutely a parallel with today.”
The Dred Scott decision, which ruled Black people ineligible for American citizenship, is widely taught in schools.
But far fewer Americans know about the Lemmon case, a New York legal battle that could have effectively legalized slavery in all 50 states had the Taney court heard it before the war broke out in 1861.
“Slaveholders were eager to get that case before Taney, because that would have nationalized slavery,” Waite said.
Despite the similarities, scholars say that there is nothing inevitable about armed conflict, and that the imperative now is to bring the political temperature down.
“Donald Trump has not been offering that message with the clarity it needs,” Pinsker said. “He says he’s a big fan of Lincoln, but now is the moment for him to remember what Lincoln stood for.”
When it comes to parallels with America’s deadliest conflict, “there’s only one lesson,” the historian said.
“We do not want another civil war,” Pinsker said. “That’s the only message that matters.”
A few hours after Charlie Kirk was killed, Sean Feucht, an influential right-wing Christian worship leader, filmed a selfie video from his home in California, his eyes brimming with tears.
The shooting of one of the nation’s most prominent conservative activists, Feucht declared, was no less than “a line in the sand” in a country descending into a spiritual darkness.
“The enemy thinks that he won, that there was a battle that was won today,” he said, referencing Satan. “No, man, there’s going to be millions of bold voices raised up out of the sacrifice and the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk.”
Soon afterward, Pastor Matt Tuggle, who leads the Salt Lake City campus of the San Diego-based Awaken megachurch, posted a video of Kirk’s killing on Instagram, adding the caption: “If your pastor isn’t telling you the left believes a evil demonic belief system you are in the wrong church!”
People place lighted candles below a photo of Charlie Kirk at a vigil in his memory in Orem, Utah.
(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
Kirk’s death has triggered a range of reaction, much of it mournful sympathy for the 31-year-old activist and his family. But it also has sparked conspiracy theories, hot-take presumptions the left was responsible and calls for vengeance against Kirk’s perceived enemies.
At a vigil for Kirk in Huntington Beach this week, some attendees waved white flags depicting a red cross and the word “Jesus,” while some chanted, “White men, fight back!” Kirk spread a philosophy that liberals sought to disempower men, and some of his male supporters see his killing as an attack against them.
Whether the calls for vengeance will ebb or intensify remains to be seen, especially with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s announcement Friday that a suspect in the fatal shooting, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, had been arrested after a family member turned him in.
In life, Kirk spoke of what he called a “spiritual battle” being waged in the United States between Christians and a Democratic Party that “supports everything that God hates.”
In death, Kirk, one of the Republican Party’s most influential power brokers, is being hailed by conservative evangelical pastors and GOP politicians as a Christian killed for his religious beliefs.
President Trump called Kirk a “martyr for truth and freedom,” and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in his honor. He blamed Kirk’s death on the rhetoric of the “radical left.” Vice President JD Vance, who helped carry Kirk’s casket to Air Force Two, retweeted a post Kirk wrote on X last month reading, “It’s all about Jesus.” And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, quoting Jesus, wrote on X: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
A woman lays her head down on a seat during a vigil at CenterPoint Church for Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah.
(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
Experts on faith and far-right extremism say they are troubled by the religious glorification of Kirk in this era of increased political violence — and the potential vengeance that may spring from it. The activist’s death, they say, seems to have ignited various factions on the right, ranging from white supremacists to hard-core Christian nationalists.
“The ‘spiritual warfare’ rhetoric will only increase,” and Kirk is now being lifted up as “a physical manifestation” of a religious battle, said Matthew Boedy, a professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of North Georgia who has written a forthcoming book about Christian nationalism that prominently features Kirk.
“Spiritual warfare rhetoric was a big part of Jan. 6,” he said of the deadly 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. “Making a martyr out of Charlie Kirk will change our nation in severe ways.”
Samuel Perry, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma and expert on Christian nationalism, said he is a Christian himself but that religion, cynically used, “has the potential to amplify what would otherwise be very secular political conflicts between Democrats and Republicans.”
“What if those are amplified with a cosmic and ultimate significance?” he said. “It becomes, ‘This is God vs. Satan. This is angels vs. demons — and if we lose this next election, we plunge the nation into a thousand years of darkness.’ … It basically provokes extremism.”
Feucht, a Christian nationalist and failed Republican congressional candidate from Northern California, said that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church” and that, in the wake of Kirk’s death, “we have to do something.”
Kirk — who rallied his millions of online followers to vote for Trump in the 2024 election — declared that God was on the side of American conservatives and that there was “no separation of church and state.” He was also known for his vitriol against racial and religious minorities, LGBTQ+ people, childless women, progressives and others who disagreed with him.
Kirk called transgender people “a throbbing middle finger to God.” He said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was “a huge mistake” and called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “awful.” On his podcast, he called with a smirk for “some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area [who] wants to really be a midterm hero” to bail out of jail the man who attacked then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer in their home in 2022.
A memorial is set up for Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
In 2023, Kirk sat on the stage of Awaken Church in Salt Lake City and said: “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the 2nd Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”
Two days before his death, Kirk retweeted a video of himself saying that a “spiritual battle is coming for the West,” with “wokeism or marxism combining with Islamism” to go after “the American way of life, which is, by the way, Christendom.”
Perry said, “There’s no need to whitewash the legacy of Charlie Kirk.”
“This is a tragedy, and no one deserves to die this way,” Perry said. “Yet, at the same time, Charlie Kirk is very much part of this polarization story in the U.S. who used quite divisive rhetoric, ‘us vs. them, the left is evil.’”
Perry noted that Kirk’s Turning Point USA had placed him on its Professor Watchlist, a website that says it aims to expose professors “who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda.” The entry on Perry flags him for “Anti-Judeo-Christian Values.”
Some on the right say their recent fiery words are only a response to the hateful rhetoric of the left. One widely shared example: Two days before Kirk’s killing, the feminist website Jezebel published an article titled, “We Paid Some Etsy Witches to Curse Charlie Kirk.” It has since been removed and replaced by a letter from the site’s editor saying it had been “intended as satire and made it absolutely clear that we wished no physical harm.”
Kirk was killed by a single sniper-style shot to the neck Wednesday during an outdoor speaking event at Utah Valley University.
After announcing the suspect’s arrest Friday, Gov. Cox said he had prayed that the shooter was not from Utah, “that somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country.” But that prayer, he said, “was not answered the way I hoped for.”
He then said that political violence “metastasizes because we can always point the finger at the other side” and that, “at some point, we have to find an offramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse.”
Some of Kirk’s most prominent evangelical followers have said that his death represents an attack on conservative Christian values and that he was gunned down for speaking “the truth.”
Jon Fleischman, Orange County-based conservative blogger and former executive director of the California Republican Party, who started out as a conservative college activist, knew Kirk and said “there is one hell of a martyr situation going on.”
“A lot of people are getting activated and are going to walk the walk, talk the talk, and give money as their way of trying to process and deal with losing someone they care about,” he told The Times.
In recent years, Kirk had become more outspoken about his Christian faith. He founded the nonprofit Turning Point USA in 2012 as an avowedly secular youth organization and became known for his college campus tours, with videos of his debates with liberal college students racking up tens of millions of views.
But in 2020, during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, college campuses closed. Kirk started speaking at churches that stayed open in violation of local lockdown and mask orders, including Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Ventura County, which was led by Pastor Rob McCoy, a former Thousand Oaks mayor.
McCoy is now the co-chair of Turning Point USA Faith, which encourages pastors to become more politically outspoken. McCoy, who could not be reached for comment, wrote in a statement Friday: “For those who rejoiced over his murder, you are instruments of evil and I implore you to repent. For those of you who mock prayer, you would do well to reconsider. Prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us toward a more peaceful and civil life.”
Professor Boedy said McCoy turned Kirk toward Christian nationalism, specifically the Seven Mountains Mandate — the idea that Christians should try to hold sway over the seven pillars of cultural influence: arts and entertainment, business, education, family, government, media and religion.
Christian nationalism, which is rejected by mainline Christians, holds that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that the faith should have primacy in government and law.
Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and a professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino, said, “the more violent fringes of Christian nationalism have disturbing aspects that are eliminationist and antidemocratic.”
He noted that some of the same Christian nationalists and white supremacists who are now calling Kirk a martyr already deified Trump, especially after he survived two assassination attempts on the campaign trail last year and said he had been “saved by God to make America great again.”
Levin said many Christian nationalists portray Trump as “an armed Christian warrior protecting America from a disturbing assortment of immigrants, religious minorities, genders and sexual orientations.” And so, when he uses martyr language to describe Kirk, his adherents latch on.
“Where do martyrs come from? From violent conflicts and wars,” Levin said. “The fact of the matter is that this is a moment that Trump could have more effectively seized, but he veered into divisive territory.”
California Senate Minority Leader Brian W. Jones (R-Santee) also called Kirk “a modern day martyr.” In a statement, Jones quoted Thomas Jefferson, who said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Jones wrote: “Let us take care that we allow that tree to grow and blossom as it feeds on the lifeblood of Charles J. Kirk in the years to come.”
Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
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.
Robinson was arrested on charges of aggravated murder and felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily harm.
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Conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on Wednesday. His suspected killer, identified by law enforcement as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was taken into custody after a substantial manhunt, based on information from people close to Robinson’s family. Utah Governor Spencer Cox said a family member of Robinson had reached out to a friend, who then contacted the authorities, and that friends and relatives interviewed by investigators described Robinson as “full of hate” when speaking about Kirk at a recent gathering. Robinson’s exact motivations for allegedly carrying out the shooting are still being explored.
If past instances of political attacks are any guide, more detailed information about Robinson’s potential motivations may be revealed over time. But we don’t need to read a manifesto or scroll through social media posts to know that any attempt to justify killing Kirk over his words or views is indefensible.
I mostly avoided Kirk’s rhetoric over the years. I found most of the content I heard from him distasteful, both to me and to many other Americans, and offensive to objective facts and discourse. Kirk often cherry-picked and distorted history to push agendas that many of us believe are not only abhorrent but also dangerous to racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, and other marginalised people.
But I did not want Kirk to be harmed. When I learned that he had been shot, I did not want him to die. On the contrary, I prayed that God’s will be done in the situation – the same God whom Kirk and I both claimed, whatever our political disagreements may have been. I hoped that he would recover, and that his brush with death might help him gain a new, more constructive perspective on politics and life.
Last summer, I had similar hopes (though perhaps not expectations) that Donald Trump would be changed for the better after he survived an assassination attempt while speaking at a campaign event. “Trump has the opportunity to put the peace and security of the country ahead of his personal ambition,” I wrote at the time. “Perhaps coming so close to death will change his perspective on stirring up his supporters.”
That did not happen. Instead, Trump quickly returned to the same sort of demonising rhetoric and selective outrage that has heightened and polarised American politics. He pardoned the January 6 rioters who attacked Capitol police officers, as well as the Proud Boys members who had been convicted of conspiring against the United States government. And even with Kirk dying from a shooting similar to the one that almost took Trump’s life last year, the president and many of his supporters have mainly doubled down on the type of vitriol that has become all too common in American politics.
This is not to say that the MAGA movement or the right has been alone in condoning political violence or dehumanising others. When UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed late last year, his alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, became somewhat of a folk hero. While this killing does not appear to be explicitly partisan, many of the comments that mocked Thompson or celebrated Mangione took on the tone of class warfare. And when unsubstantiated rumours about Trump’s health started to circulate recently, many of his detractors seemed to celebrate the possibility that Trump could be incapacitated or worse, and expressed disappointment when he re-emerged in the public eye.
But toxic online rhetoric is one thing, and nearly any popular topic will elicit offensive or hateful commentary on social media. With the MAGA movement led by Trump, the hateful language of its most trollish followers is often indistinguishable from the rhetoric coming from the movement’s loudest and most prominent voices. After breaking the news of Kirk’s death on social media, President Trump posted a four-minute video honouring Kirk and demonising the political left.
“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now. It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonising those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.”
Now seems like an appropriate time to remind you that, less than a year ago, Trump appeared on Fox News and referred to leftists as “the enemy from within” and “Marxists and communists and fascists,” specifically naming Adam Schiff and “the Pelosis” and calling them “so sick and so evil.”
“From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year, which killed a husband and father, to the attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a healthcare executive in the streets of New York, to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical Left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”
Noticeably absent from the president’s list were several violent, sometimes lethal, attacks against Democrats or carried out by self-declared MAGA followers. It is a calculated choice to condemn the shooting of a prominent Republican in 2017 but not the murders of two Democrats and the shooting of two others in Minnesota three months ago, or the torching of the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion while Democrat Josh Shapiro and his family slept inside. Condemning “attacks on ICE agents” after pardoning dozens of people who attacked Capitol police officers is a cynical double standard.
Through the discourse surrounding Kirk’s death, I’ve become familiar with the term “selective empathy,” a succinct phrase that covers a concept with which many of us are familiar. At their worst, President Trump and even Kirk engaged in this type of moral relativism, condoning actions against their opponents that they would condemn if done to their allies. And those of us who reject the MAGA ideology are at our worst when we tolerate, excuse, or even celebrate, violence against those who oppose us or who hold us in disdain.
At his best, Charlie Kirk manifested his core religious and political beliefs by appealing to the universal values of love and human dignity rooted in Christianity and the principle of equality on which the United States was founded. While he often failed to conform his rhetoric to these larger principles, Kirk and others in his ideological camp are still deserving of the empathy embedded in those principles. To deny them such consideration based on their views would be to undermine our own opposition to their divisive and even dangerous rhetoric. For all our sakes, we can and must do better.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
US president says suspect was turned in by someone ‘close to him’ and that he hopes he gets ‘the death penalty’.
Published On 12 Sep 202512 Sep 2025
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United States President Donald Trump has said that “with a high degree of certainty” that the gunman in the killing of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk has been caught.
Trump said on Friday that a minister, who is also linked to law enforcement, turned in the suspect to authorities. “Somebody that was very close to him,” Trump said.
Trump told Fox & Friends that he hoped the suspect got “the death penalty”.
The FBI and state officials on Thursday released photos and a video of the person they believe is responsible. Kirk was shot as he spoke to a crowd gathered in a courtyard at Utah Valley University in Orem.
The president said he was informed of the suspect’s arrest “five minutes before I walked in” the studio, praising local authorities for their coordination. “They did a great job, everybody worked together. It all worked out,” he said.
Trump paid tribute to Kirk, calling him “the finest person” who was “like a son” to him. He said Kirk was “a brilliant guy” who helped him win the election with TikTok and energised young voters. “I’ve never seen young people go to one person like they did to Charlie,” Trump added.
The suspect is “28 or 29”, according to Trump.
More to come …
Republicans and Democrats came together on the House floor on Wednesday to hold a moment of silence in honor of Charlie Kirk, just as news broke that the magnetic youth activist had been shot and killed.
The bipartisanship lasted about a minute.
The event quickly spiraled after a request to pray for Kirk from Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado led to objections from Democrats and a partisan shouting match.
Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a close friend of Kirk’s, told Democrats on the floor that they “caused this” — a comment she later said she stood by, arguing that “their hateful rhetoric” against Republicans contributed to Kirk’s killing.
Johnson banged on the gavel, demanding order as the commotion continued.
“The House will be in order!” he yelled to no avail.
The incident underscored the deep-seated partisan tensions on Capitol Hill as the assassination of Kirk revives the debate over gun violence and acts of political violence in a divided nation. As Congress reacted to the news, lawmakers of both parties publicly denounced the assassination of Kirk and called it an unacceptable act of violence.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said he was “deeply disturbed about the threat of violence that has entered our political life.”
“I pray that we will remember that every person, no matter how vehement our disagreement with them, is a human being and a fellow American deserving of respect and protection,” Thune said.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), whose husband, Paul, was attacked with a hammer three years ago, also denounced the fatal shooting.
“Political violence has absolutely no place in our nation,” she said in a post on X.
A few hours after the commotion on the House floor, the White House released a four-minute video of President Trump in which he said Kirk’s assassination marked a “dark moment for America.” He also blamed the violent act on the “radical left.”
“My administration will find each and every one of those that contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it,” Trump said as he grieved the loss of his close ally.
A federal manhunt is under way for anyone involved in the assassination of the conservative commentator and Trump ally.
Published On 12 Sep 202512 Sep 2025
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The FBI has released photos of a person of interest in the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Investigators say they also have video footage but are withholding it while they work on identifying the person.
Published On 11 Sep 202511 Sep 2025
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OREM, Utah — Authorities said Thursday they have fresh leads in their massive manhunt for a college-age shooter who killed influential right-wing activist Charlie Kirk with a single bullet as he spoke at a Utah college campus.
No suspects were in custody Thursday, more than 20 hours after the shooting, and officials have yet to identify the gunman. However, Robert Bohls, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Salt Lake City office, said that investigators recovered the weapon they believe was used to kill Kirk — a high-powered bolt-action rifle they found in a wooded area near the campus — as well as the suspect’s footprints and palm prints.
“We are and will continue to work nonstop until we find the person that has committed this heinous crime, and find out why they did it,” Bohls said.
A close ally of President Trump who founded the conservative youth group Turning Point USA, Kirk was killed Wednesday by a single shot fired from the rooftop of a nearby building as he addressed a question about mass shootings at a Utah Valley University campus in Orem.
Investigators are tracking a suspect who appeared to be college age and blended in on campus, Beau Mason, commissioner of the Utah Department of Public Safety, told reporters Thursday morning. They have scoured dozens of feeds from campus security cameras and collected footwear impressions, a palm print and forearm imprints for analysis.
Video of the crowd captured by an attendee shows a lone figure in black dashing across the rooftop of the Losee Center, a building about 150 yards from where Kirk was speaking.
Mason said investigators “are confident in our abilities to track” the shooter and had “good video footage” that they were not ready to release.
“We are working through some technologies and some ways to identify this individual,” he said.
After scouring camera security footage, investigators believe the shooter arrived on campus at about 11:52 am and moved through the stairwells, up to the roof, across the roof to the shooting location, Mason said.
“We were able to track his movements as he moved to the other side of the building, jumped off of the building and fled off of the campus and into a neighborhood,” Mason said. “Our investigators worked through those neighborhoods, contacting anybody they can, with doorbell cameras, witnesses, and have thoroughly worked through those communities trying to identify any leads.”
Bohls said investigators recovered a high-powered, bolt-action rifle in a wooded area where the shooter had fled. A law enforcement source told The Times a Mauser 30-06 was recovered by investigators. Investigators have not said whether the rifle had been traced to an owner.
The Utah Department of Public Safety said Wednesday night its State Crime Lab is working “multiple active crime scenes” — from the site where Kirk was shot to the locations he and the suspect traveled — with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Utah County Attorney’s office, the Utah County Sheriff’s office, and the local police departments.
Hope for a speedy capture of the suspect faded Wednesday night after the F.B.I. released the man its director, Kash Patel, had said was a subject of the investigation. After thanking local and state authorities for taking into custody “the subject for the horrific shooting,” Patel announced that the man had been released after an interrogation by law enforcement.
“Our investigation continues,” Patel said.
Another man who was taken into custody a few hours earlier was later released after being booked by Utah Valley University police on suspicion of obstruction of justice.
Speaking at the Pentagon Thursday at an event commemorating the Sept. 11 attacks, President Trump said he would posthumously award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Kirk.
“Charlie was a giant of his generation, a champion of liberty and an inspiration to millions and millions of people,” Trump said.
The shooter is believed to have fired about 20 minutes after Kirk began speaking Wednesday on a grassy campus courtyard under a white canopy emblazoned with the slogan “PROVE ME WRONG.” The event, attended by about 3,000 people, was the first stop on Kirk’s American Comeback Tour of U.S. campuses.
Some experts who have seen videos believe that the assailant probably had experience with firearms, given the precision with which the single shot was fired from a considerable distance.
Videos shared on social media show Kirk sitting on a chair, taking questions in front of a large crowd of people.
“Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?” an audience member asks.
“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk responds.
Almost immediately, a shot rings out. Kirk falls back, blood gushing his neck. Video show people screaming and fleeing from the event.
The killing — the latest incident in a spate of violent attacks targeting American politicians on the left and the right — led to swift condemnation of political violence from both sides of the ideological divide. But it also led to a blame game.
After President Trump celebrated Kirk as a “patriot who devoted his life to the cause of open debate” and “martyr for truth and freedom,” he said in an evening video broadcast from the Oval Office that “‘radical left” rhetoric was “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”
Trump — who did not mention recent acts of political violence against Democratic lawmakers — called for a crackdown on leftwing groups.
Even as the House of Representatives observed a moment of silence for Kirk Wednesday when he was still in critical condition, the floor descended into chaos when some Democrats pushed back on a Republican legislator’s request that someone lead the group in prayer.
Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a former conservative influencer and close friend of Kirk, pointed angrily at Democrats. “You all caused this,” she shouted.
Kirk, 31, was one of the Republican Party’s most influential power brokers.
The founder of the influential conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, Kirk had a vast online reach: 1.6 million followers on Rumble, 3.8 million subscribers on YouTube, 5.2 million followers on X and 7.3 million followers on TikTok.
During the 2024 election, he rallied his online followers to support Trump, prompting conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly to say: “It’s not an understatement to say that this man is responsible for helping the Republicans win back the White House and the U.S. Senate.”
Just after Trump was elected for a second time to the presidency in November, Kirk frequently posted to social media from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where he had firsthand influence over which MAGA loyalists Trump named to his Cabinet.
Kirk was known for melding his conservative politics, nationalism and evangelical faith, casting the current political climate as a state of spiritual warfare between a righteous right wing and so-called godless liberals.
At a Turning Point event on the Salt Lake City campus of Awaken Church in 2023, he said that gun violence was worth the price of upholding the right to bear arms.
“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the 2nd Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,” he said. “That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”
Kirk also previously declared that God was on the side of American conservatives and that there was “no separation of church and state.” In a speech to Trump supporters in Georgia last year, he said that “the Democrat Party supports everything that God hates” and that “there is a spiritual battle happening all around us.”
Political analyst Matthew Dowd lost his contributor role at MSNBC because of comments he made about Charlie Kirk after the young right-wing activist was murdered Wednesday.
Shortly after Kirk was shot to death while speaking on stage at Utah Valley State University, Dowd told MSNBC anchor Katy Tur that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which then lead to hateful actions.”
The angry reaction on social media was immediate after Dowd’s comments suggested that Kirk’s history of incendiary remarks led to the shooting.
MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler issued an apology Wednesday night.
“During our breaking news coverage of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, Matthew Dowd made comments that were inappropriate, insensitive, and unacceptable,” Kutler said in a statement. “There is no place for violence in America, political or otherwise.”
The network then severed ties with Dowd, according to a person briefed on the decision who was not authorized to comment.
“My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Charlie Kirk,” Dowd later wrote on his Bluesky account. “I was asked a question on the environment we are in. I apologize for my tone and words. Let me be clear, I in no way intended for my comments to blame Kirk for this horrendous attack.”
Dowd is a political consultant who served as the chief strategist for George W. Bush’s successful 2004 presidential reelection campaign. Dowd broke away from the Republican party due to his unhappiness with Bush’s handling of the Iraq war.
Dowd previously served as a political analyst for ABC News.
Sept. 11 (UPI) — Vice President JD Vance and his wife Usha Vance will travel to Utah Thursday to pay respects to the family of Charlie Kirk.
The vice president changed his previous plans to visit New York City to honor the victims of the Sept. 11. 2001, terrorist attacks, according to sources reported by USA Today, The Hill and Politico.
Political activist and author Charlie Kirk, 31, was shot and killed Wednesday while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, which is about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City.
About 3,000 people attended the event, and Kirk was responding to a question about mass shootings when a single shot was heard at about 12:20 p.m. MDT, Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason told reporters during a late-afternoon news conference.
Kirk placed his right hand on his neck as he fell. He was picked up by his private security team, which took him to Intermountain Health Utah Valley Hospital, which is near the university.
He was pronounced dead soon after.
The vice president was a close friend of Kirk.
President Donald Trump still plans to attend a 9/11 observance at the Pentagon and then a New York Yankees–Detroit Tigers baseball game at Yankee Stadium.
Vance eulogized Kirk in a long post on X late Wednesday.
“Charlie Kirk was a true friend,” Vance wrote. “The kind of guy you could say something to and know it would always stay with him. I am on more than a few group chats with Charlie and people he introduced me to over the years. We celebrate weddings and babies, bust each other’s chops, and mourn the loss of loved ones. We talk about politics and policy and sports and life.”
“I was in a meeting in the West Wing when those group chats started lighting up with people telling Charlie they were praying for him,” he continued. “And that’s how I learned the news that my friend had been shot. I prayed a lot over the next hour, as first good news and then bad trickled in.”
Charlie Kirk, a right-wing activist and commentator who became a household name in the United States as an outspoken ally of President Donald Trump, has been shot and killed at a Utah college event.
As the CEO and cofounder of the conservative youth organisation Turning Point USA, the 31-year-old Kirk attracted millions of viewers online for his outdoor debates on US college campuses.
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Video of the shooting circulating on social media showed Kirk speaking to a large outdoor crowd and, moments later, falling off his chair with his hands on his neck after a loud crack that sounded like a gunshot.
He was pronounced dead after being brought to hospital in critical condition.
Utah authorities said Kirk was killed with a single shot that likely came from the rooftop of a nearby building in what is believed to be a targeted killing.
FBI director Kash Patel said a suspect in the shooting had been taken into custody but then released after interrogation.
The subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement. Our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in interest of transparency https://t.co/YXsG6YpFR5
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) September 10, 2025
Kirk was known for his polarising debates on hot-button topics, including transgender identity and abortion.
An online petition calling on university administrators to prevent him from speaking on Wednesday had received nearly 1,000 signatures.
With the rise of political violence across the US in recent years, Kirk’s killing has brought condemnation from both sides of the political spectrum.
Here are reactions to the news of Kirk’s death:
President Trump, who survived two assassination attempts last year, wrote on his Truth Social platform that “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead”.
Playing the role of adviser and supporter in previous Trump election campaigns, Kirk developed a close relationship with Trump’s campaign team and his family.
“No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me,” Trump wrote.
“In honour of Charlie Kirk, a truly Great American Patriot, I am ordering all American Flags throughout the United States lowered to Half Mast until Sunday evening at 6 PM,” he said.
Joe Biden, who was running for president in 2020 when Kirk was a vocal ally of the Trump campaign, condemned the shooting on the X platform.
“There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones,” he wrote.
There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 10, 2025
“We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.”
We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 10, 2025
Kirk repeatedly professed his Christian Evangelical faith and was a staunch supporter of Israel during his on-air debates at college campuses. In a post on X, Israel’s Netanyahu regretted that the activist could not visit Israel as planned.
“Charlie Kirk was murdered for speaking truth and defending freedom. A lion-hearted friend of Israel, he fought the lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization. I spoke to him only two weeks ago and invited him to Israel. Sadly, that visit will not take place. We lost an incredible human being. His boundless pride in America and his valiant belief in free speech will leave a lasting impact.”
“My thoughts this evening are with the loved ones of Charlie Kirk. It is heartbreaking that a young family has been robbed of a father and a husband.
“We must all be free to debate openly and freely without fear – there can be no justification for political violence,” he wrote.
My thoughts this evening are with the loved ones of Charlie Kirk.
It is heartbreaking that a young family has been robbed of a father and a husband.
We must all be free to debate openly and freely without fear – there can be no justification for political violence.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) September 10, 2025
“Once again, a bullet has silenced the most eloquent truth teller of an era. My dear friend Charlie Kirk was our country’s relentless and courageous crusader for free speech. We pray for Erika and the children,” Kennedy wrote on X.
“Charlie is already in paradise with the angels. We ask his prayers for our country.”
“The brutal murder of Charlie Kirk is nothing short of evil a cowardly attack on America’s very soul. Faith, family, freedom, the right to speak truth trampled by violence. My blood boils. Justice must be relentless and unforgiving,” he wrote.
“If you knew him, you’d love him,” Hegseth told US troops, speaking of his admiration for and friendship with Kirk.
“Taken by an assassin’s bullet – unfathomable,” Hegseth said.
A prayer for Charlie Kirk and those who serve. pic.twitter.com/wWkEEvheRm
— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) September 11, 2025
Withers, who was often seen on the opposite end of Kirk during debates on political YouTube channels, posted a video on TikTok, which now has more than 10 million views, saying: “I’m sad, distraught. In fact, I just cried in front of my livestream in front of 250,000 people.”
He continued, “[Gun violence] is always disgusting, always vile and always abhorrent.”
“My thoughts and prayers go out to Charlie Kirk’s friends, family, children, loved ones, as well as every single person in attendance at his event today in Utah.”
Bolsonaro said in a post on the X platform that he was “shocked” by Kirk’s killing, whom he described as a “young man with a good heart … who dedicated his life to mobilising conservative youth in the US”.
“I had the honour of accompanying him in his work and know the greatness of his mission. Another conservative victim of hate and intolerance,” Bolsonaro wrote.
Multiple videos from the scene show graphic details about the killing of conservative commentator and political organizer Charlie Kirk at a university in Utah on Wednesday.
Authorities are now poring over the video as part of the investigation into Kirk’s killing. They are still looking for the gunman after briefly detaining and then freeing two people of interest.
Charlie Kirk speaks before he is fatally shot during an event Wednesday at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
(Tess Crowley / Deseret News / AP)
Kirk drew a large crowd to the event at Utah Valley University. He was gunned down at 12:20 p.m. while talking about mass shootings.
“Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?” an audience member asks.
“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk responds.
Almost immediately, Kirk is shot in the neck. One video shows blood pouring from the wound as he falls over. As the crowd realizes what has taken place, people are heard screaming and running away.
“This incident occurred with a large crowd around. There was one shot fired, one victim,” Beau Mason, commissioner of the Utah Department of Public Safety, said on Wednesday afternoon. “While the suspect is at large, we believe this was a targeted attack toward one individual.”
Members of the crowd screamed and ran after a gunshot was heard and Kirk toppled from his chair.
(Tess Crowley / Deseret News / AP)
The shooter is believed to have fired from the roof of a building at Kirk as he participated in the public event in the student courtyard, where around 3,000 people were gathered, according to the Department of Public Safety.
A source familiar with the investigation told The Times that a bullet struck Kirk’s carotid artery.
Moments later, many in the crowd begin running.
Jeffrey Long, chief of the university’s Police Department, said six of the force’s officers, including some plainclothes officers embedded in the crowd, were working with members of Kirk’s personal security team to manage safety at the event.
Several videos show a person who appears to be dressed in black moving on the roof of university’s Losee Center moments before the gunfire.
Mason, of the Utah Department of Public Safety, said authorities were analyzing campus security video that showed a suspect in dark clothing who might have shot at Kirk from a roof.
The gunman is believed to have killed Kirk from at least 200 yards away using some type of sniper rifle, law enforcement sources told The Times.
Allison Hemingway-Witty cries after the shooting.
(Tess Crowley / Deseret News / AP)
Some experts who have seen videos believe that the assailant probably had experience with firearms, given the precision with which the single shot was fired from a considerable distance.
Witness Seth Teasdale told the Salt Lake Tribune that the gunshot was so loud it echoed across the pavilion where Kirk was speaking.
Brynlee Holms told the Tribune the shot was “super loud,” which added to the panic in the crowd.
“I just heard a clear shot, ‘Boom!’ And that was it,” another witness told KUTV.
Police detained George Zinn and Zachariah Qureshi as suspects and later released them after determining they had no ties to the shooting, according to the Department of Public Safety. The manhunt for the shooter continues.
No videos have surfaced showing the gunman firing the shot or fleeing the scene.
Mason said authorities were reviewing closed-circuit television video. “We’re analyzing it, but it is security camera footage, so you can kind of guess what the quality of that is,” Mason said. “We do know [the suspect was] dressed in all dark clothing. We don’t have a much better description.”
Utah Gov. Stephen Cox called the attack “a political assassination” and said Wednesday was “a dark day for our state” and “a tragic day for our nation.”
Law enforcement was working “multiple active crime scenes” including the area Kirk was shot as well as the locations where the suspect and victim traveled, according to the Public Safety Department. They did not provide any further information on the suspect.
The FBI created a tip line to gather information that may lead to the shooter’s arrest.
Over the next few days, we are going to hear politicians, commentators and others remind us that political violence is never OK, and never the answer.
That is true.
There is no room in a healthy democracy, or a moral society, for killings based on vengeance or beliefs — political, religious, whatever.
But the sad reality is that our democracy is not healthy, and violence is a symptom of that. Not the make-believe, cities-overrun violence that has led to the military in our streets, but real, targeted political violence that has crept into society with increasing frequency.
Our decline did not begin with the horrific slaying Wednesday of Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old father and conservative media superstar, and it will not end with it. We are in a moment of struggle, with two competing views for where our country should go and what it should be. Only one can win, and both sides believe it is a battle worth fighting.
So be it. Fights in democracy are nothing new and nothing wrong.
We can blame the heated political rhetoric of either side for violence, as many already are, but words are not bullets and strong democracies can withstand even the ugliest of speeches, the most hateful of positions.
The painful and hard specter of more violence to come has less to do with far-right or far-left than extreme fringe in either political direction. Occasionally it’s ideological, but more often it isn’t MAGA, communist or socialist so much as confusion and rage cloaking itself in political convenience. Violence comes where trust in the system is decimated, and where hope is ground to dust.
These are the places were we find the isolated, the disenfranchised, the red-pilled or the blue-pilled — however you see it — and anyone else, who pushed by the stress and anger of this moment, finds themselves believing violence or even murder is a solution, maybe the only solution.
These are not mainstream people. Like all killers, they live outside the rules of society and likely would have found their way beyond our boundaries with or without politics. But politics found them, and provided what may have seemed like clarity in a maelstrom of anything but.
In the past few years, we have seen people such as this make two attempts on Donald Trump’s life. One of those was a 20-year-old student, Michael Thomas Crooks, still almost a kid, whose motives will likely never be known.
The American flag at the White House is lowered on Wednesday after the slaying of Charlie Kirk.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
A few months ago, we saw a political massacre in Minnesota aimed at Democratic lawmakers. Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed by the same attacker who shot state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, and attempted to shoot their daughter Hope. Authorities found a hit list of 45 targets in his possession.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home was firebombed this year. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer faced a somewhat bumbling kidnap plot in 2020. In 2017, a shooter hit four people at the congressional softball game, including then U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and U.S. Capitol Police officer Crystal Griner.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home was broken into in 2022 and her husband, Paul, was attacked by a hammer-wielding assailant with a unicorn costume in his backpack.
Despite the fact that these instances of violence have been aimed at both Democrats and Republicans, we live under a Republican government at the moment, one that holds unprecedented power.
Already, that power structure is calling not for calm or justice, but retribution.
“We’ve got trans shooters. You’ve got riots in L.A. They are at war with us, whether we want to accept it or not. They are at war with us,” said Fox News commentator Jesse Watters shortly after Kirk was shot. “What are we going to do about it? How much political violence are we going to tolerate? And that’s the question we’re just going to have to ask ourselves.”
On that last bit, I agree with Watters. We do need to ask ourselves how much political violence we are going to tolerate.
The internet is buzzing with a quote from Kirk on gun violence: “I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”
Like Kirk, I think some things are worth ugly prices. I don’t think guns are one of them, but I do think democracy is.
We can’t allow political violence to be the reason we curb democracy. Even if that violence continues, we must find ways to fight it that preserve the constitutional values that make America exceptional.
“It is extremely important to caution U.S. policymakers in this heated environment to act responsibly and not use the specter of political violence as an excuse to suppress nonviolent movements, curb freedoms of assembly and expression, encourage retaliation, or otherwise close civic spaces,” a trio of Brookings Institution researchers wrote as part of their “Monitoring the pillars of democracy” series. “Weaponizing calls for stability and peace in response to political violence is a real threat in democratic and nondemocratic countries globally.”
The slaying of Charlie Kirk is reprehensible, and his family and friends have suffered a loss I can’t imagine. Condolences don’t cover it.
But the legacy of his death, and of political violence, can’t be crackdowns — because if we do that, we forever damage the country we all claim to love.
If we take anything away from this tragic day, let it be a commitment to democracy, and America, in all her chaotic and flawed glory.
Charlie Kirk, a well-known conservative activist in the United States and staunch ally of President Donald Trump, was shot dead at an event at Utah Valley University.
Video of the incident circulating on social media showed Kirk speaking to a large outdoor crowd when a loud crack, a gunshot, rings out.
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Kirk briefly clutches his neck before collapsing from his chair, sending attendees fleeing. He was 31 years old.
Here is what we know:
Kirk was on a speaking tour, and his stop at Utah Valley University was the first of at least 15 scheduled events at universities around the country as part of his “American Comeback Tour”.
Before the shooting, he was seated at his “Prove Me Wrong” debating table, taking questions from an audience outdoors.
Videos show that Kirk was going back and forth with a student about mass shootings and transgender people when he was shot.
“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” Kirk was asked.
“Too many,” Kirk responded as the crowd clapped.
“Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?” To which Kirk replied, “Counting or not counting gang violence?”
Seconds later, Kirk could be seen struck in the neck as he falls from his chair.
According to reports, Kirk was shot about 20 minutes after he began speaking at approximately 12:10pm local time (18:10 GMT).
In video footage from the event, it can be seen how Kirk moved his hand towards his neck as he fell off his chair, sending the attendees running. In another clip, blood can be seen gushing from his neck immediately after the shot.
No one else was shot during the event.
Kirk’s wife and children were present during the incident.
The shooting took place in the courtyard at Utah Valley University, located about 64km (40 miles) south of Salt Lake City.
A spokeswoman for the university said Kirk was hit by a shot fired from the roof of the school’s Losee Center, a campus building about 180 metres (200 yards) from the event area.
It was not clear whether the shot was fired from a rooftop or an open window.
Charlie Kirk was one of the most prominent conservative activists and media personalities in the US, and a trusted ally of President Trump.
He co-founded Turning Point USA, a nonprofit conservative advocacy group, when he was just 18.
Kirk’s group grew into the country’s largest conservative youth movement, and over the years, he became a central player in a network of pro-Trump influencers, often described as the face of the “Make America Great Again” movement.
Trump often credited Kirk with bringing many young voters and voters of colour over to his side during the 2024 presidential campaign.
He was also a sharp critic of mainstream media and threw himself into culture-war battles over race, gender and immigration.
His provocative style won him a loyal support base but also fierce opposition.
Kirk also became a close friend of the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, with whom Kirk travelled to Greenland in January. He was also an early champion of Vice President JD Vance as Trump was deciding whether the senator would be his running mate.
Kirk had 5.2 million followers on the platform X and hosted The Charlie Kirk Show, a podcast and radio programme that reached more than 500,000 listeners each month. He made regular appearances on Fox News, including a recent guest co-hosting slot on Fox & Friends.
According to a report by The New York Times, Kirk never pursued a role within the administration. His aim was to reshape the Republican Party and, more broadly, American politics.
“We want to transform the culture,” he told The New York Times Magazine in February.
Kirk also built a fortune through his popular podcast, frequent speaking engagements and books, including his 2020 bestseller, The MAGA Doctrine.
On social media, he posted constantly, offering a right-wing perspective on a plethora of issues.
In response to the fatal, unprovoked stabbing of a white woman by a Black man, Kirk posted this on X on Tuesday:
Will Cain is 100% right.
We have been propagandized by liars and fakers in the media to believe that America is a vicious, racist country and indiscriminate attacks on black people by whites happen all the time.
But the numbers tell the truth. Black attacks on white people… pic.twitter.com/SHmlxAIhds
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 9, 2025
There was confusion about whether a suspect was in custody.
A “person of interest” was in custody on Wednesday evening, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said, though no charges were immediately announced.
FBI director, Kash Patel, said on X: “The subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement. Our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in the interest of transparency.”
Beau Mason, the head of the Utah Department of Public Safety, said a suspect was described as being dressed in all-dark clothing.
He said one shot was fired in the fatal attack.
Six officers were working the event, and there were more than 3,000 people in attendance, according to Jeff Long, chief of the Utah Valley University police department.
Kirk also had a private security team with him.
“This is a dark day for our state. It’s a tragic day for our nation,” Utah Governor Cox said.
“I want to be very clear that this is a political assassination.”
Currently, the campus is closed, according to the university.
At 12:37 pm (18:37 GMT), the university shut down the campus, cancelled classes, and told everyone to leave.
At 2:01 pm (20:01 GMT), students were told to “stay where you are until police can escort you off campus safely”.
Classes have been cancelled until further notice.
UVU campus is closed. Classes cancelled. Those on campus, secure in place until police officers can escort you safely off campus. Police are currently going building to building escorting people off campus. Roads to campus are currently closed.
— UVU (@UVU) September 10, 2025
Democrats and Republicans quickly denounced the shooting on social media and in Congress.
Trump has ordered all American flags to be lowered to half-staff until Sunday evening, in honour of Kirk.
“There is no place” for this violence, former US President Joe Biden said on X.
There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 10, 2025
Vice President JD Vance also reacted:
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord. pic.twitter.com/lYLEjv40bN
— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 10, 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had invited Kirk to Israel:
Charlie Kirk was murdered for speaking truth and defending freedom. A lion-hearted friend of Israel, he fought the lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization. I spoke to him only two weeks ago and invited him to Israel. Sadly, that visit will not take place.
We lost an…— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) September 10, 2025
Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy, posted on Telegram: “There was an attack on Charlie Kirk, one of the most ardent conservative leaders known for his positive statements about Russia and his calls for dialogue.”
Barack Obama, former US president, said this: “Despicable violence has no place in our democracy.”
We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 10, 2025
Turning Point also posted on X:
— Turning Point USA (@TPUSA) September 10, 2025
Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, a shocking act of political violence that brought widespread condemnation.
Hours after the shooting, the suspected gunman was taken into custody, FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X.
“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” President Trump said on Truth Social. “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us.”
Videos shared on social media show Kirk sitting under a white canopy, speaking to hundreds of people through a microphone, when a loud pop is heard; he suddenly falls back, blood gushing from his neck.
Before he was shot in the neck, he was asked about mass shootings.
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“Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?” an audience member asks.
“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk responds.
Almost immediately, Kirk is shot in the neck. One video shows blood pouring from the wound. As the crowd realizes what has taken place, people are heard screaming and running away.
A source familiar with the investigation told The Times that a bullet struck Kirk’s carotid artery.
Charlie Kirk speaks before his fatal shooting Wednesday at Utah Valley University.
(Tess Crowley / Deseret News / AP)
Utah Valley University police said in an alert that “a single shot was fired on campus toward a visiting speaker” and that it was investigating the shooting.
Law enforcement sources said Kirk was fatally wounded from a considerable distance, perhaps 200 yards away, by a sniper-style shot.
Videos shared on X, show an older man in handcuffs on the ground whom witnesses claimed was the gunman. The man is heard saying, “I have the right to remain silent.” In another video, police escort the man while the crowd jeers him. One woman is heard screaming, “How dare you!”
Earlier Wednesday afternoon, Trump posted a message about the incident on Truth Social.
“We must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot. A great guy from top to bottom. GOD BLESS HIM!” he said.
Mike Lee, a Utah senator, posted on X shortly after videos circulated online that he was “tracking the situation at Utah Valley University closely.”
“Please join me in praying for Charlie Kirk and the students gathered there,” he said.
The shooting drew immediate words of support and calls for prayers for Kirk from leading conservative politicians.
“Say a prayer for Charlie Kirk, a genuinely good guy and a young father,” Vice President JD Vance posted on X.
Crowd members react after Charlie Kirk’s shooting at Utah Valley University.
(Tess Crowley / Deseret News / AP)
Leading Democrats also moved swiftly to condemn the attack.
“The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on X. “In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in EVERY form.”
Gabrielle Giffords, a former Arizona congresswoman who survived a political assassination attempt in 2011 and is a gun violence prevention advocate, said on X that she was horrified to hear that Kirk was shot.
“Democratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence,” she wrote.
Kirk, a conservative political activist, was in Utah for his American Comeback Tour, which held its first stop at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.
The tour, as with many of his events, had drawn both supporters and protesters. Kirk’s wife and children were at the university when he was shot, Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin posted on X.
Kirk, 31, was one of the Republican Party’s most influential power brokers.
The founder of the influential conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, Kirk had a vast online reach: 1.6 million followers on Rumble, 3.8 million subscribers on YouTube, 5.2 million followers on X and 7.3 million followers on TikTok.
During the 2024 election, he rallied his online followers to support Trump, prompting conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly to say: “It’s not an understatement to say that this man is responsible for helping the Republicans win back the White House and the U.S. Senate.”
Just after Trump was elected for a second time to the presidency last November, Kirk frequently posted to social media from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where he had first-hand influence over which MAGA loyalists Trump named to his Cabinet.
Kirk was known for melding his conservative politics, nationalism and evangelical faith, casting the current political climate as a state of spiritual warfare between a righteous right wing and so-called “godless” liberals.
He declared that God was on the side of American conservatives and that there was “no separation of church and state.” And in a speech to Trump supporters in Georgia last year, he said that “the Democrat Party supports everything that God hates” and that “there is a spiritual battle happening all around us.”
Kirk was also known for his memes and college campus speaking tours meant to “own the libs.” Videos of his debates with liberal college students have racked up tens of millions of views.
Matthew Boedy, a professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of North Georgia, has written a forthcoming book about Christian nationalism that prominently features Kirk and his influence. The book, “The Seven Mountains Mandate,” comes out Sept. 30.
“Today is a tragedy,” Boedy said in an interview with The Times on Wednesday. “It is a red flag for our nation.”
Boedy said the shooting — following the two assassination attempts against Trump on the campaign trail last year — was a tragic reminder of “just how divisive we have become.”
In June, a shooter posing as a police officer fatally shot Minnesota state House Democratic leader Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their home in an incident that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called “a politically motivated assassination.”
Another Democratic lawmaker, state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, were also injured at their residence less than 10 miles away.
In April, a shooter set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, forcing Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family to flee during the Jewish holiday of Passover.
In July 2024, Trump himself survived a hail of bullets, one of which grazed his ear, at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa. Two months later, a man with a rifle was arrested by Secret Service agents after he was spotted amid shrubs near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort.
Kirk’s presence at the Utah campus was preceded by petitions and protests. But, Boedy noted, that was typical with his appearances.
“Charlie Kirk is, I would say, the most influential person who doesn’t work in the White House,” he said.
Boedy said Kirk reached a vast array of demographics through his radio show and social media accounts and was “in conversation with President Trump a lot.”
Kirk had said his melding in recent years of faith and politics was influenced by Rob McCoy, the pastor of Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Newbury Park in Ventura County. Kirk called McCoy, who often spoke at his events, his personal pastor.
Boedy said McCoy turned Kirk toward Christian nationalism, specifically the Seven Mountains Mandate — the idea that Christians should try to influence the seven pillars of cultural influence: arts and religion, business, education, family, government, media and religion.
Boedy said Kirk “turned Turning Point USA into an arm of Christian nationalism. There’s a strategy called the Seven Mountains Mandate, and he has put his TPUSA money into each of those.”
Boedy said Kirk was a vocal 2nd Amendment supporter and that the shooting likely would further the desire among his conservative followers who tout the idea of having good guys with guns “to have more guns everywhere, which is sad.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency was closely monitoring reports of the shooting.
“Our thoughts are with Charlie, his loved ones, and everyone affected,” he said on X. “Agents will be on the scene quickly and the FBI stands in full support of the ongoing response and investigation.”
Meanwhile, 345 miles to the east, at least three students were in critical condition following a shooting at a high school in Colorado.
The shooting happened earlier in the afternoon at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County. A fourth person may have been hurt as well. Among those injured was the shooter, who was described by authorities only as a juvenile. No other details were provided on the shooting.
Times staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration and the conservative movement were stunned Wednesday by the shooting of Charlie Kirk, a disruptive leader in GOP politics who accomplished what was once thought a pipe dream, expanding Republican ranks among America’s youth.
Inside the White House, senior officials that had worked closely alongside Kirk throughout much of their careers reacted with shock. It was a moment of political violence reminiscent of the repeated attempts on Donald Trump’s life during the 2024 presidential campaign, one official told The Times.
“We must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “A great guy from top to bottom. GOD BLESS HIM!”
Kirk, a founder of Turning Point USA, was instrumental in recruiting young Americans on college campuses to GOP voter rolls, making himself an indispensable part of Republican campaigns down ballot across the country. That mission made his shooting on a college campus in Utah all the more poignant to his friends and allies, who reacted with dismay at videos of the shooting circulating online.
His impact, helping to increase support among 18- to 24-year-old voters for Republican candidates by double-digit margins in just four years, has been credited by Republican operatives as driving the party’s victories last year, allowing the GOP to retake the House, Senate and the presidency.
Democrats have recognized his prowess, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom hosting him on his podcast earlier this year in an appeal to young, predominantly male voters lost by the Democrats in recent years.
“The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible. In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in EVERY form,” Newsom said on X in response to the news.
As videos of the shooting circulated online, a number of prominent Republicans, including senior members of the Trump administration, reacted to the news by asking the public to pray for the young activist.
“Say a prayer for Charlie Kirk, a genuinely good guy and a young father,” Vice President JD Vance said in a post on X.
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said federal agents were at the scene of the shooting in Utah. FBI Director Kash Patel added the FBI will be helping with the investigation.
Wilner reported from Washington, Ceballos from Tallahassee, Fla.