Charlie Kirk shot and killed in Utah
Charlie Kirk shot and killed in Utah,
Conservative influencer and activist Charlie Kirk has died after being shot in the neck during a speaking event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah on Sept. 10.
Videos circulating on social media show Kirk, 31, who was on campus as part of “The American Comeback Tour” hosted by conservative nonproft Turning Point USA, speaking in the university’s courtyard when he was shot in the neck. Livestream video showed crowds of people running from the area where the shooting occurred.
Kirk's death was initially confirmed by social media posts by President Donald Trump and Turning Point USA and later confirmed by officials during a news conference.
The university initially stated on social media that a suspect was in custody, but Scott Trotter, a university spokesman, told the New York Times and Deseret News that police determined the person who was taken into custody was not the shooter. Campus police declined to comment when reached by USA TODAY.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said during a news conference that a person of interest was in custody, though Utah's Commissioner of Public Safety Beau Mason said minutes before that: "The suspect is at large."
Eva Terry and Emma Pitts, two reporters from the Deseret News, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, arrived on the Utah Valley University campus early Wednesday. They talked with people in the crowd who’d gathered to hear Kirk speak. “I’ve seen things I’ve never seen before,” Terry told a USA TODAY reporter hours later.
Kirk had called up one student and answered a question, then called on a second student, who asked “How many mass shooters have been transgender,” Terry said. “Too many,” responded Kirk, said Terry, who covers politics for the Deseret News and has been a reporter there for about two years.
When the student asked a follow up question, “(Kirk) picked up his microphone and before he was able to speak a bullet hit the left side of his neck and it was pretty bloody,” Terry said.
“Then he fell off his chair and then everyone dropped to the ground,” she said. “I didn’t see anyone catch him, I saw him slump out of his chair and that’s the last thing I saw.”
“When the shot went off, we dropped to the ground and were holding each other and we said a prayer,” she said. Everyone around them was dropping to the ground, and then after about 30 seconds, she said “everyone ran.”
Kirk was shot at around 12:10 according to a social media post from the university. Beau Mason, Commissioner of the Utah Department of Public Safety, placed the shooting at around 12:20 during a later news conference.
