Susanna Brink was a witness to Charlie Kirk’s fierce right-wing advocacy.
Brink, 19, saw Kirk speak at two anti-abortion events in recent years, once in her home state of Texas and another in Washington D.C. She said she appreciated that Kirk advocated for causes she cared about and spoke out for the Christian faithful, even if she didn’t always agree with Kirk, who was known for a brash and polarizing style that engendered a huge following while leaving others outraged and ostracized.
News of Kirk’s shooting death at a Utah Valley University event Wednesday shook Brink, a sophomore at Wheaton College, an Evangelical Christian school about 25 miles west of Chicago. Brink, her classmates and students from other colleges in the Chicago area called for an end to political violence and polarization.
“It was really shocking and really sad. I really appreciated his testimony of faith. It’s a really sad loss,” Brinks said. “It really shows the brokenness of our world.”
On Thursday the FBI released two photos of a person of interest in Kirk’s murder. The shooter, who fired a single shot from a distant roof as Kirk debated with students at the campus event, remained at large and unidentified.
President Donald Trump said he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S. Kirk was a close Trump ally and important in rallying young conservative voters as he preached a right-wing ideology.
Also Thursday, amidst the tripwire political climate, word came of threats toward six historically Black colleges and universities in the south, leading to lockdown orders, canceled classes and heightened security. The lockdowns were later lifted and the authorities didn’t elaborate on the threats, according to the Associated Press.
Along with his Christian advocacy, Kirk was known for his inflammatory statements about gender, race and politics that marginalized groups of Americans, particularly people of color and the LGBTQ+ community.
He relished engaging with people with whom he disagreed but also regularly offended and sparked anger with his comments, including during a visit to Georgia last year amid the presidential race when he said Democrats “stand for everything God hates,” and, “This is a Christian state. I’d like to see it stay that way.” He also called George Floyd, the Black man whose 2020 murder by Minneapolis police sparked protests, a “scumbag.”
And, when defending gun rights, Kirk said “I think it’s worth 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.”
Jordan Grund-Wickramasekera, a sophomore at Loyola University, said Kirk’s shooting was a “microcosm” of the political divisions across the country. He said those divides need to be overcome.
“I didn’t agree with anything that Charlie Kirk really said. I have a feeling if I talked to [Kirk] directly, we’d probably have a lot of disagreements,” said Grund-Wickramasekera, who has a liberal background but actively seeks to hear and understand more conservative perspectives. “But being able to talk with somebody from a drastically different perspective, I think, is very important within a democracy.”
Kirk, who was born in Arlington Heights and attended Wheeling High School, was 31 and the father of two young children with his wife Erika.
Democrats and Republicans, including Gov. JB Pritzker and Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, have decried Kirk’s killing.
Zach Johnson, a sophomore at Wheaton College from South Carolina, said the most important takeaway is to not escalate into further incidents.
“No more violence, we don’t want any more of that,” Johnson said.
Kirk’s killing was the latest in violent, politically motivated attacks across the political spectrum in recent months. That includes the killing of a top Democratic state lawmaker and her spouse in Minnesota, the firebombing of the Democratic Pennsylvania governor’s residence while he and his family slept and the killing of Israeli embassy staffers after an event at a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C.
Johnson, 20, wasn’t a close follower of Kirk’s but knew of his work, which included founding and running the national group TurningPoint USA, which recruits students to support conservative candidates and causes. Johnson said he respected Kirk’s willingness to debate with those with whom he disagreed, a trait Johnson considered a rarity today.
“It’s very sad that we lost him,” he said
Students with conservative groups at Illinois State University are also mourning. The school’s chapters of Turning Point USA and College Republicans hosted a vigil Thursday night in Kirk’s memory. Ross Vancil, president of the College Republicans, said many of his peers are feeling “deeply shocked.” Vancil saw Kirk speak when he made a stop at the Bloomington-Normal last April campus as part of his “American Comeback Tour.”
“There’s no place for this kind of violence in the United States,” Vancil said. “This is a point where we can unify, and instead of becoming violent or angry … And overall, try to make the place that we live in … a better place.”
Back at Wheaton, Brink said she wants in a country where people talk through their differences.
“America should be a place where people are allowed to express their beliefs freely and we should be able to engage in civil disagreement and discourse,” Brink said.