On the night of Aug. 22, a young woman was fatally stabbed in the neck by a man aboard a light rail train in Charlotte, N.C.
Her name was Iryna Zarutska. She was a white Ukrainian refugee who was returning from her job at a pizzeria. , she was trying to escape war back home and build a better life.
Her suspected killer鈥檚 name is Decarlos Brown Jr. He is a 34-year-old black man with a long criminal record.聽, he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and believed there was 鈥渕aterial鈥 in his body that was responsible for the attack.
Man with 14 prior criminal cases was charged with the murder of Iryna Zarutska in an apparently random attack captured on video.
Man with 14 prior criminal cases was charged with the murder of Iryna Zarutska in an apparently random attack captured on video.
It took more than two weeks for the tragic case . But when it did, it checked all the boxes in his political consciousness.
Rampant urban crime? Black-on-white violence? The double standards of a biased left-wing media?
Check, check, and check.
Thus did a horrid, but seemingly random and senseless, killing transform into a campaign to promote stiffer criminal penalties 鈥 one of so many that the 31-year-old political warrior and unapologetic Christian-first figure championed in his brief but influential time in the world of American politics.
So it should be no surprise if his own horrific murder Wednesday during is used to further the political agenda he worked so hard to push.
The first indications of this came with U.S. President Donald Trump鈥檚 , in which he described Kirk as 鈥渁 martyr for truth and freedom.鈥
Police were still searching Thursday for the shooter, who is believed to have fired from the rooftop of a building about 100 metres away from where Kirk was seated, but Trump accused 鈥渢he radical left鈥 of having blood on their hands.
鈥淰iolence and murder are the tragic consequences of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible,鈥 Trump said, noting that Kirk and other 鈥渨onderful Americans鈥 on the right were often likened in public debate to Nazis, murderers and criminals.
鈥淭his kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we鈥檙e seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.鈥
For Trump, Kirk鈥檚 killing was a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I moment, akin to the gunman鈥檚 bullet that clipped his ear and fatally struck an audience member behind the stage at a July 2024 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
And Trump鈥檚 famous fist-in-the-air call for his supporters to 鈥渇ight, fight, fight鈥 echoes once again in the wake of the Utah shooting.
Charlie Kirk speaks before he is shot during Turning Point’s visit to Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Wednesday, shortly before he was fatally shot.
Tess Crowley/APKirk was, from the many accounts of those who are mourning his gruesome murder, among the most important actors on the American right. Through , the organization that he founded in 2012 as a high school graduate, he aimed to promote fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government among students across the country.
That鈥檚 the official description on the Turning Point website, at least. The snappier鈥 and more pertinent 鈥 version of that mission statement is attributed to Kirk himself: “We play offence with a sense of urgency to win America鈥檚 culture war.鈥
Rifle recovered in the search for Charlie Kirk’s killer as FBI releases photos of person of interest
The shooter appeared to be of college age and blended in on聽the university campus where Kirk was killed聽Wednesday, authorities said.
Rifle recovered in the search for Charlie Kirk’s killer as FBI releases photos of person of interest
The shooter appeared to be of college age and blended in on聽the university campus where Kirk was killed聽Wednesday, authorities said.
A culture, that in his opinion, has no time or space for migrants, Islam or inclusivity 鈥 just three of his favourite subjects.
Ben Shapiro, a like-minded fellow conservative commentator, remembered meeting Kirk when he was an eager 18 year old.
鈥淚 immediately turned to a friend and said, 鈥楾hat kid is going to be the head of the RNC one day,鈥欌 he wrote on X, the social media platform.
鈥淐harlie became even bigger and more important than that. It was a privilege to watch this principled man stand up for his beliefs and create the single most important conservative political organization in America.鈥
Kirk worked on Trump鈥檚 first presidential campaign. But he made a more powerful contribution to his second election victory last year with university campus tours in which he offered himself up in an open-mic session of political whack-a-mole.
All-comers were invited to engage him in on the topics of their choosing. It could be abortion, guns, Israel, transgender rights or anything, really. What mattered was the edited clips that flooded social media feeds around the world showing Kirk verbally wiping the floor with deranged Democrats and liberals.
That was political gold 鈥 a shot in the arm for right wingers who had been lacking the confidence to say out loud what they had been feeling deep inside.
鈥淚’ve seen people attack him for years for being wrong on this or that issue publicly, never realizing that privately he was working to broaden the scope of acceptable debate,鈥 U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance .
He added that Trump鈥檚 second-term victory and 鈥渟o much of the success we鈥檝e had in this administration traces directly to Charlie鈥檚 ability to organize and convene.鈥
Kirk was there along with Donald Trump Jr. when , a Danish聽territory that Trump said he wanted for America, to be sold or to be seized, if necessary.
When former prime minister Justin Trudeau said in January there 鈥渋sn鈥檛 a snowball鈥檚 chance in hell鈥 that Trump would make Canada the 51st state, Kirk .
鈥淢r. Trudeau, when you鈥檙e playing defence, you鈥檙e already losing!鈥
This, more than anything, may be the tactical political legacy that Kirk leaves for those who will take up his mission. In his final days, he gave something of a master-class in putting his opponents on their back foot when he latched onto the killing of Zarutska, the Ukrainian refugee.
Her alleged killer’s long criminal record was evidence, he said, of previous governments’ ineffective approach to public safety. The absence of the case in mainstream media headlines was seen as proof of a race-based double standard, particularly when contrasted with the public and political outcry over the 2020 killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white police officer, in Minnesota.
“If we want things to change, it’s 100 per cent necessary to politicize the senseless murder of Iryna Zarutska because it was politics that allowed a savage monster with 14 priors to be free on the streets to kill her,” .
By then, Kirk had dedicated an episode of his syndicated radio show to the killing, , and Trump has called for a quick trial and the death penalty.
“We have to be vicious just like they are,” . “It’s the only thing that they understand.”
Kirk had engaged the debate with all of his political and rhetorical powers. Depending on what side of the spectrum one lies, he either elevated a troubling matter all the way up to the Oval Office or sunk his nation ever deeper into the mud of partisan politics.
And in death, Kirk has legions of like-minded players vowing to engage in his battle.聽
Alex Jones, the American conspiracy theorist, announced that despite his own fears for his life, which have often limited his public appearances, he would be organizing his own nation-wide university tour to take up Kirk’s fallen torch.
“If one guy does it and gets killed it will intimidate us and they win,” . “Everybody’s got to be Charlie now.”
And Trump vowed to expand his administration’s efforts to target those responsible for Kirk’s death and other incidents of politically motivated violence, including organizations that fund and support it and the judges and law enforcement officials who are charged with enforcing the law and keeping order.
“Because of this heinous act,” he said, “Charlie鈥檚 voice has become bigger and grander than ever before 鈥 and it鈥檚 not even close.”
