Conservative activist Charlie Kirk assassinated at Utah university
[September 11, 2025]
By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM, ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, MARK SHERMAN
and ERIC TUCKER
OREM, Utah (AP) — Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and close ally
of President Donald Trump who played an influential role in rallying
young Republican voters, was shot and killed Wednesday at a Utah college
event in what the governor called a political assassination carried out
from a rooftop.
“This is a dark day for our state. It’s a tragic day for our nation,"
said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. "I want to be very clear this is a political
assassination.”
No suspect was in custody late Wednesday, though authorities were
searching for a new person of interest, according to a law enforcement
official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss the
situation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. Two people were
detained earlier in the day but neither was determined to have had any
connection to the shooting and both have been released, Utah public
safety officials said.
Authorities did not immediately identify a motive but the circumstances
of the shooting drew renewed attention to an escalating threat of
political violence in the United States that in the last several years
has cut across the ideological spectrum. The assassination drew
bipartisan condemnation, but a national reckoning over ways to prevent
political grievances from manifesting as deadly violence seemed elusive.
Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University show Kirk
speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent
emblazoned with the slogans “The American Comeback” and “Prove Me
Wrong.” A single shot rings out and Kirk can be seen reaching up with
his right hand as a large volume of blood gushes from the left side of
his neck. Stunned spectators are heard gasping and screaming before
people start to run away. The Associated Press was able to confirm the
videos were taken at Sorensen Center courtyard on the Utah Valley
University campus.
Kirk was speaking at a debate hosted by his nonprofit political
organization. Immediately before the shooting, Kirk was taking questions
from an audience member about mass shootings and gun violence.
“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over
the last 10 years?” the person asked. Kirk responded, “Too many.”
The questioner followed up: “Do you know how many mass shooters there
have been in America over the last 10 years?”
“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk asked.
Then a single shot rang out. The shooter, who Cox pledged would be held
accountable in a state with the death penalty, wore dark clothing and
fired from a building roof some distance away to the courtyard where the
event took place.
Some 3,000 people were in attendance, according to a statement from the
Utah Department of Public Safety, which also said the university police
department had six officers working the event along with Kirk's own
security detail.
The death was announced on social media by Trump, who praised the
31-year-old Kirk, the co-founder and CEO of the youth organization
Turning Point USA, as “Great, and even Legendary.” Later Wednesday, he
released a recorded video from the White House in which he called Kirk a
“martyr for truth and freedom” and blamed the rhetoric of the “radical
left” for the killing.
Utah Valley University said the campus was immediately evacuated and
remained closed. Classes were canceled until further notice. Those still
on campus were asked to stay in place until police officers could safely
escort them off campus. Armed officers walked around the neighborhood
bordering the campus, knocking on doors and asking for information on
the shooter.
Officers were seen looking at a photo on their phones and showing it to
people to see if they recognized a person of interest.
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Charlie Kirk hands out hats before speaking at Utah Valley
University in Orem, Utah, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Tess
Crowley/The Deseret News via AP)
The event, billed as the first stop on Kirk's “The American Comeback
Tour,” had generated a polarizing campus reaction. An online
petition calling for university administrators to bar Kirk from
appearing received nearly 1,000 signatures. The university issued a
statement last week citing First Amendment rights and affirming its
“commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive
dialogue.”
Last week, Kirk posted on X images of news clips showing his visit
was sparking controversy. He wrote, “What’s going on in Utah?”
The shooting drew swift condemnation across the political aisle as
Democratic officials joined Trump, who ordered flags lowered to
half-staff and issued a presidential proclamation, and Republican
allies of Kirk in decrying the violence.
“The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible,”
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last March hosted Kirk
on his podcast, posted on X.
“The murder of Charlie Kirk breaks my heart. My deepest sympathies
are with his wife, two young children, and friends,” said Gabrielle
Giffords, the former Democratic congresswoman who was wounded in a
2011 shooting in her Arizona district.
The shooting appeared poised to become part of a spike of political
violence that has touched a range of ideologies and representatives
of both major parties. The attacks include the assassination of a
Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband at their house in June, the
firebombing of a Colorado parade to demand Hamas release hostages,
and a fire set at the house of Pennsylvania’s governor, who is
Jewish, in April. The most notorious of these events is the shooting
of Trump during a campaign rally last year.
Former Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who was at
Wednesday's event, said in an interview on Fox News Channel that he
heard one shot and saw Kirk go back.
“It seemed like it was a close shot,” Chaffetz said, who seemed
shaken as he spoke.
He said there was a light police presence at the event and Kirk had
some security but not enough.
“Utah is one of the safest places on the planet,” he said. “And so
we just don’t have these types of things.”
Turning Point was founded in suburban Chicago in 2012 by Kirk, then
18, and William Montgomery, a tea party activist, to proselytize on
college campuses for low taxes and limited government. It was not an
immediate success.
But Kirk’s zeal for confronting liberals in academia eventually won
over an influential set of conservative financiers.
Despite early misgivings, Turning Point enthusiastically backed
Trump after he clinched the GOP nomination in 2016. Kirk served as a
personal aide to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son,
during the general election campaign.
Soon, Kirk was a regular presence on cable TV, where he leaned into
the culture wars and heaped praise on the then-president. Trump and
his son were equally effusive and often spoke at Turning Point
conferences.
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Richer and Sherman reported from Washington. Associated Press
writers Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and Michael Biesecker, Brian
Slodysko, Lindsay Whitehurst and Michelle L. Price in Washington
contributed to this report.
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