I heard the news shortly after dropping off my daughter at BYU kindergarten. The shooting apparently happened while we were on the road. Utah Valley University is only a couple of miles from our house, and the hospital where he died is only a mile from us.
I saw the videos of the assassination, including the now-censored one that showed it up close. I also saw the videos of the alleged shooter being hauled off in police custody, though now it appears that the University is saying that he wasn’t the shooter. This is such a fast-moving story that we probably won’t know exactly what happened until at least 24 hours from now, and there may be some things that we never know. And since I wasn’t there when it happened, I can’t comment on the shooting itself.
I just have to say, this is not who we are here in Utah. The shooter may turn out to be a Utah man, but that is not who we are—the rest of us. And I don’t just mean right vs. left, conservative vs. liberal. Most of us here in Utah swing MAGA (in fact, I’ve got a couple of neighbors who are still proudly flying their Trump flags), but we’ve also got some neighbors with rainbow flags and decals, and I’m sure that the vast majority of them are just as horrified that this assassination happened in our community. In fact, they’re probably afraid of how the rest of us will react.
My thoughts and prayers go out to Charlie Kirk’s family. I can’t imagine how horrible that must be, not just to lose your husband and father, but to have the footage of his violent death plastered all over the internet. I hope that more good than evil ultimately comes of this national tragedy, and that Charlie Kirk’s work will live on for many years to come.
This feels like a professional paid hit to me, based on what I’ve heard so far. If it is, they may never find the shooter 🙁