Last afternoon at around 3:00 eastern-time, well known political activist Charlie Kirk was shot at an event at Utah Valley University. Kirk, 31, was addressing nearly three thousand people, while on the first of his fifteen scheduled stops on a nationwide tour of college campuses for his conservative group, Turning Point USA. Kirk died from the gunshot wound shortly after.
Security in the area caught a suspected shooter quickly, though the man they arrested was almost immediately released upon the proof of his innocence. As of now, the FBI is undergoing a manhunt to find Kirk’s killer. The FBI released images of the suspect at 1:42 this afternoon.
This marked the second major shooting of the day following a school shooting at a high school at Evergreen Colorado, in which the perpetrator wounded at least two students, ultimately taking his own life. This marked the 46th school shooting of 2025, as gun violence continues to rise across the United States.
Kirk’s death, as a very well known political figure, immediately took over all of social media, specifically Tik Tok and Twitter, leading to quite a bit of concerns over the two sites’ censorship. Videos of the Charlie Kirk shooting flooded the timelines of these sites, with the gruesome scene being nearly unavoidable to the average social media user.
Students around Bernards High School were no exception to this widespread accessibility of Kirk’s death. Junior Jack Martin voiced his concern over this availability saying “it was not something that should have been shared around, and it is unacceptable that society and social media allows these things to be shared on the internet for everyone to see”.
Kirk’s assassination and the situation in Colorado have only led to gun violence being a more prevalent issue across the United States, as more questions have been raised as to what direction the nation should take.
Mrs. Snyder, an English teacher at Bernards high school expressed her “fear for [her] own children, fear for [her students]” and more than anything a “strong desire to understand why” the “uniquely American problem” of gun violence is still an issue.
As the FBI continues to learn more about the suspected gunman, more information will be revealed as to the motive and perhaps lead to more clarity on the events of yesterday.
