OREM, Utah, USA Charlie Kirk, a conservative and close activist of US President Donald Trump who played an influential role in the mobilization of young Republican voters, died on Wednesday after being shot in a university event in Utah in what the governor described as “political murder.”
“This is a dark day for our state. It is a tragic day for our nation,” said Utah governor Spencer Cox. “I want to make it very clear that this is a political murder.”
Late on Wednesday there was no one arrested, although the authorities were looking for a new person of interest, according to a police officer familiar with the matter who was not authorized to talk about the situation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. The authorities had previously provided updated information about the state of the search, and the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, initially said on social networks that he had stopped a “subject”, but later said that the person had been released after being interrogated.
Archive – The founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, speaks during a campaign rally, on October 24, 2024, in Las Vegas.
(John Locher/AP)
The authorities have not so far identified the person who had been detained, a reason or any criminal office.
But the circumstances of the shooting attracted attention to a growing threat of political violence in the United States, which in recent years has crossed the ideological spectrum. The murder caused a bipartisan condemnation, but it seemed difficult to reach a national agreement on how to prevent political grievances from manifesting themselves as deadly violence.
Videos published on social networks from the University of the Utah Valley show Kirk speaking in a microphone while sitting under a white tent with the slogans “the American return” and “shows that I am wrong.” A single shot is heard and Kirk can be seen raising his right hand while a large volume of blood sprouts on the left side of his neck. Happy spectators are heard panting and shouting before people start running. The Associated Press was able to confirm that the videos were taken in the courtyard of the Sorensen center on the Campus of the Universidad del Valle de Utah.
Archive – Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Turning Point Action conference on July 15, 2023, at West Palm Beach, Florida.
(Lynne Sweet/AP)
Kirk was talking in a debate organized by his non -profit political organization. Immediately before the shooting, Kirk was answering questions from a audience member about mass shootings and armed violence.
“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been massive shooters in the last 10 years?” The person asked. Kirk replied: “Too many.”
The interrogator continued: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in the United States in the last 10 years?”
“Counting or not telling gang violence?” Kirk asked.
Then the shot was heard. The shooter, who Cox promised that he would be taken before justice in a state with death penalty, wore dark clothes and shot from a roof on the campus at a distance.
The death was announced on social networks by Trump, who said that Kirk, 31, co -founder and general director of the Turning Point USA youth organization, was “great, and even legendary.”
“No one understood or knew better the heart of youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” Trump wrote in his social truth account.
The Utah University University said the campus was evacuated immediately and was still closed. The classes were canceled until further notice. Those who were still in the enclosure were asked to remain there until the police could escort them safely outside the campus. Armed agents walked through the neighborhood surrounding the campus, playing doors and asking for information about the shooter.
Agents have been seen looking at a photo in their cell phones and showing it to people to see if they recognize a person of interest.
The event, announced as the first stop of the “American return tour” of Kirk, had generated a polarized reaction on the campus. An online petition that asked the university administrators to prohibit the appearance of Kirk received almost 1,000 signatures. Last week, the center issued a statement citing the rights contemplated in the first constitutional amendment and affirming its “commitment to freedom of expression, intellectual research and constructive dialogue.”
Last week, Kirk posted in X images of news cuts that showed that his visit to Utah universities was generating controversy, accompanied by the text “What is happening in Utah?”
The shooting caused a rapid bipartisan condemnation, with Democratic officials by joining Trump – who ordered the flags to wave at half -mast and issue a presidential proclamation – and republican allies of Kirk to denounce violence.
“The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile and censurable,” California Democratic governor wrote in X, Gavin Newsom, who last March received Kirk in his podcast.
Archive – The founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, speaks at a Turning Point event before the speech of the republican candidate for the vice presidency, Senator JD Vance, Republican for Ohio, on September 4, 2024, at Mesa, Arizona.
(Ross D. Franklin/AP)
“The murder of Charlie Kirk breaks my heart. My deepest condolences to her wife, her two young children and friends,” said Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic former manager injured in a shooting in 2011 in her Arizona district.
The shooting seemed to be ready to become part of a rebound in political violence that has touched a variety of ideologies and representatives of the two main parties. The attacks include the murder of a state legislator from Minnesota and her husband in her home in June, the launch of incendiary bombs in a parade in Colorado to demand that Hamas free the hostages, and a fire caused in the house of the governor of Pennsylvania, who is Jewish, in April. The best known of these acts was Trump’s shooting during a campaign rally last year.
Utah’s former congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who was in the event, said in an interview in Fox News Channel who heard a shot and saw Kirk back.
“It seemed that it was a close shot,” said Chaffetz, who seemed shocked while talking.
Attendees react after Charlie Kirk, general director and co -founder of the Turning Point USA youth organization, was shot at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025, in OREM, Utah.
(Tess Crowley/AP)
He pointed out that there was little police presence on the spot and that Kirk had some security, but not enough.
“Utah is one of the safest places on the planet,” he said. “And that’s why we simply don’t have this kind of thing.”
Turning Point was founded on the Chicago suburbs in 2012 by Kirk, who was then 18, and William Montgomery, an activist from the Tea Party, to campaign on the university campuses in favor of low taxes and limitations to the government. He did not have an immediate success.
But Kirk’s enthusiasm for confronting liberals in the academic field finally reached an influential set of conservative financiers.
Despite the initial doubts, Turning Point enthusiastically backed Trump when the Republican nomination in 2016 was secured. Kirk was Donald Trump Jr.’s personal assistant, the president’s eldest son, during the electoral campaign to the White House.
Soon, Kirk became a usual presence on cable television, where he entered the cultural wars and praised the then president. Trump and his son were equally effusive already participated in Turning Point conferences.
