Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot during a campus speaking event in Utah, marking the latest in a string of politically motivated attacks that have become more commonplace over the last year.
The attack, captured in social media videos, sent hundreds of students scrambling for cover as Kirk collapsed on stage, struck in the neck by a bullet fired from within the crowd.
According to videos posted on social media, Kirk was speaking to a large crowd in an outdoor venue when a single shot rang out from behind the large crowd that had gathered for the event. Kirk appeared to have been hit in the neck.
“This is a dark day for our state. It’s a tragic day for our nation. I want to be very clear that this is a political assassination,” Gov. Spencer Cox said during a press conference about the shooting on Wednesday afternoon.
“Our nation is broken,” Cox added.
The attack follows a bloody pattern: a Minnesota lawmaker gunned down in June, failed assassination attempts on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and former President Trump, and now Kirk.
“Nothing I can say will unite us as a country. Nothing I can say right now can fix what is broken,” Cox lamented. “We need every single person in this country to think about where we are and where we want to be. To ask ourselves, is this it?”
Unfortunately, according to conservative political commentator Mike Madrid, it’s clear that America is heading into an era that will be marked by increasing levels of politically motivated violence.
“All the evidence was pointing to this type of event happening sooner rather than later,” Madrid said.
Madrid says there are numerous examples of the increased use of violent imagery in political rhetoric by people on both the right and left sides of the political spectrum, which makes him believe that things are going to get far worse before they get better.
“Our society is living among each other, hating each other to the point of violence. What that means for us is a long, protracted era of political violence that only ends when both sides are exhausted by the violence. That is by far the most likely scenario that I see.”
Former Republican political consultant and Park City resident Reed Galen was more succinct.
“When violence is introduced as a political expression, it’s very hard to remove and it eventually hurts everyone regardless of their belief system,” Galen said.
“Once the flywheel of violence starts spinning, it doesn’t discriminate based on ideology.”
There were conflicting reports on Wednesday afternoon about the suspect. FBI Director Kash Patel posted on social media that a suspect in the shooting was in custody. Utah law enforcement officials said that they were questioning “a person of interest” in the shooting, but would not call them a suspect.
The shooting comes just months after Utah lawmakers changed the law to allow anyone over the age of 18 to openly carry a weapon on college campuses if they have a concealed carry permit. Previously, firearms were allowed on campus only if the person had a permit and the weapon was concealed.
The shooting was the second high-profile public shooting related to a political event in Utah this year. In June, an armed security volunteer shot and killed a bystander during the massive “No Kings” march in downtown Salt Lake City. That volunteer was allegedly shooting at a person carrying a rifle during the protest.
