Christians and politicians called for prayer after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot Wednesday afternoon.
Within hours, they learned Kirk, the 31-year-old executive director of Turning Point USA, had died, and their prayers for recovery turned to mourning the leader and decrying the violence that killed him.
Kirk had been speaking from a tent to thousands of students gathered in the courtyard of Utah Valley University when a single bullet sailed toward him and appeared to hit him in the neck before he collapsed.
The shooter fired from the student center building, about 200 yards away, per university reports. By Wednesday evening, police had questioned and released two individuals but had not publicly identified a suspect.
President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance memorialized Kirk, one of the best-known young conservative voices in the country and a friend of the administration, with the president saying on Truth Social, “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie.”
“Charlie was killed while working to peacefully persuade others,” wrote pro-life activist Lila Rose. “May his witness call us to reject hatred and violence and to embrace the power of truth spoken in love.”
The fatal shooting comes amid a sense of swelling political violence in the US, including the murder of a Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota in June and an assassination attempt against Trump during a Pennsylvania campaign rally last year. Texas pastor Jack Graham, an evangelical adviser to Trump, called Kirk a “martyr.”
Kirk was an evangelical Christian, and his wife, Erika, runs a Christian clothing brand and Bible-reading project called Biblein365. She posted from the Psalms on X today: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
Kirk’s movement of young conservatives took off during Trump’s first term, expanding to around 800 campuses including dozens of Christian schools.
Kirk was popular, but Turning Point USA has also been divisive. On its website, the organization urges conservatives to “take up arms in the culture war.” Some professors reported harassment after it launched a watch list to expose “leftist propaganda” in college classrooms.
Kirk had partnered with Jerry Falwell Jr. to form the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty at Liberty University before Turning Point USA began its own faith arm in 2021. TPUSA Faith sets out to “unite the Church around primary doctrine and to eliminate wokeism from the American pulpit.” It offers biblical citizenship classes, courses for pastors, and church events.
Utah Valley University in Orem had been the first stop of Kirk’s “American Comeback Tour,” with events across 10 cities in September and October.
The university told The New York Times that six officers from the college’s police department worked the event, in addition to Kirk’s security team. Police chief Jeff Long said, “You try to get your bases covered, and unfortunately, today, we didn’t. Because of that, we have this tragic incident.”
The leaders of the school’s TPUSA chapter donned American Comeback T-shirts and MAGA hats as they promoted the event for weeks with posters, videos, and a giant cutout of Kirk’s head. Kirk was manning his “Prove Me Wrong” table, ready to debate with students on the Orem, Utah, campus.
“Charlie Kirk got Gen Z off the sidelines. We owe him much,” wrote Southern Baptist pastor Dean Inserra following Kirk’s death.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
