Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and ally of President Donald Trump, was shot and killed Wednesday while visiting Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Kirk, 31, was speaking to students about gun violence when someone fired a single shot from a nearby building.
Video circulating on social media showed the activist seated in a chair. As he answered a question, a bullet struck him and blood gushed from his neck. He slumped over as people in the audience screamed.
“We heard a big, loud shot. I saw a bunch of blood come out of Charlie, I saw his body kind of kick back and go limp, and everybody dropped to the ground,” Justin Hickens, who was at the event, told NBC News.
Kirk was transported to an area hospital, where he was pronounced deceased. He leaves behind a wife and two small children.
Trump announced his death on Truth Social at 4:40 p.m. ET.
“The great, and even legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!” Trump posted.
A spokesperson for the university said in a statement to the media that Kirk was shot from a building about 200 feet from where he was seated.
The gunman fled. But during a televised news conference just before 7 p.m. ET, Gov. Spencer Cox (R-Utah) told reporters a person of interest had been taken into custody.
Cox did not provide additional details on the individual.
Kirk co-founded Turning Point USA, a right-wing group that promotes conservative ideals among high school and college students. He was at Utah Valley University for the first stop of the nonprofit’s fall 2025 “American Comeback Tour,” according to the group’s website.
Upcoming stops are planned for Colorado State University, the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Virginia Tech University, the University of North Dakota, Montana State University, Indiana University, Utah State University, Louisiana State University, and the University of Mississippi.
Kirk was a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects the right to bear arms.
In the aftermath of the shooting, some of his past comments about gun violence were resurfaced on social media.
In 2023 after a mass shooting, Kirk said gun deaths are unfortunately “worth it” to maintain the Second Amendment. Progressive watchdog group Media Matters published a transcript of his comments on its website soon after he made them.
“You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won’t have a single gun death that is nonsense. It’s drivel,” Kirk said.
“But I am — I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe.”
He went on to say guns and “armed guards” stop mass shootings.
“People say, ‘Oh, Charlie, how do you stop school shootings?’ I don’t know. How did we stop shootings at baseball games? Because we have armed guards outside of baseball games.” he continued. “Notice there’s not a lot of mass shootings at gun shows, there’s all these guns. Because everyone’s armed. If our money and our sporting events and our airplanes have armed guards, why don’t our children?”
Students attending Wednesday’s event told reporters there was no added security.
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