WASHINGTON – Conservative activist and close associate of President Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk, was shot and killed while speaking at a college event in Orem, Utah on Wednesday, September 10. This has sent shockwaves across the United States.
Around 12:20 p.m. local time, the shooting happened on the campus of Utah Valley University (UVU) during what was supposed to be the first event of Kirk’s “The American Comeback Tour.” Viral recordings from the scene show Kirk, who is 31 years old, in the middle of a question-and-answer session about gun violence when a single shot rang out. People who saw it happen said that the bullet hit him in the neck and he fell right away. He didn’t make it to the hospital in time to save his life.
Governor Spencer Cox of Utah quickly called the murder a “political assassination.” Police have said that the gunfire probably came from a rooftop, but they don’t know anything about the culprit yet. FBI Director Kash Patel’s first report said that a “person of interest” had been arrested, but it was later made clear that this person was released after being questioned. The investigation is still continuing on, and no one is in jail at this moment.
The Question That Came Before the Shooting
Kirk was arguing with someone in the audience just before the gunfire. “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in the last ten years in the United States?” was the question he was asked. As Kirk started to think about what to say, his last words were, “Are you counting or not counting gang violence?” The shooting happened before he could finish his idea, which is a scary detail that has been widely shared in videos and news stories about the event.
Trump’s Response and Blame
In a post on Truth Social, President Donald Trump talked about the news and called Kirk “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk.” He also said that Kirk “had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie.” He later made a video message in which he directly blamed the “radical left” for the murder. Trump said that his political enemies were making the world more violent by “demonizing” people like Kirk and calling them “Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers.”
This most recent act of political violence in the U.S. has led to bipartisan condemnation and once again sparked a national discourse about gun regulation and the risks of political division.
This is the second high-profile political attack in a little over a year in which a well-known person was shot from a rooftop. Donald Trump almost got shot at a rally in Pennsylvania in July 2024. In that case, a shooter named Thomas Matthew Crooks shot from a high place, hitting Trump’s ear and hurting him a little.