Classes resumed at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, a week after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot on the school’s campus.
Students returned to a barricaded courtyard where a single shot fired from a rooftop struck down the 31-year-old right-wing organizer and father of two.
Prosecutors on Tuesday officially charged 22-year-old suspect Tyler Robinson with aggravated murder and additional crimes, saying they plan to seek the death penalty if he’s convicted.
“The way that we treat each other in our words can ultimately lead to things like this,” 24-year-old student Matthew Caldwell said Wednesday. He believes Kirk’s slaying makes that message especially clear.
Upon returning to school, Caldwell and his classmates found themselves with access to care stations that handed out stuffed animals and candy. They were also provided with information on counseling services.
While some employers, including universities, have disciplined staffers for mocking or undermining Kirk’s killing, many of his supporters, including the president of the United States, have seized on the act of violence as a call to action against “the radical left” and “each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity.”
When announcing the charges on Tuesday, authorities said Robinson texted his roommate and romantic partner, who investigators say is transgender, to confess that he targeted Kirk because he’d had “enough of his hatred.”
Kirk was largely seen as a polarizing figure who defended highly conservative positions on race, gender, LGBTQ+ rights, climate change and gun control. His fateful Sept. 10 visit to UVU was scheduled to be the beginning of his American Comeback Tour, in which he welcomed debating students on college campuses.
The conservative firebrand was about 20 minutes into his presentation and was answering questions about gun violence at the moment he was shot.
“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” challenged mathematics student Hunter Kozak. “Too many,” Kirk responded.
“Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?” he followed up.
“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk replied.
Not seconds later, he was fatally shot in the neck by a gunman perched on the roof of a building several hundred feet away.
According to university police, around 3,000 people had gathered to hear Kirk speak, but no one else was wounded by the gunfire.
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