What to know about Charlie Kirk, Trump ally and conservative activist

Charlie Kerk was one of the highest conservative activists and media figures in the United States, and a reliable ally of President Donald Trump.

He was shot on Wednesday at the age of 31 while hosting a university event at Turning Point Usa, the organization that he participated in establishing, while the police call it targeted shooting.

President Donald Trump announced the sudden news about the death of Kirk, and praised the crime on the social truth: “The legendary, and even the legendary, Charlie Kerk, had died. No one understood or had the heart of young people in the United States of America better than Charlie.”

Kirk was seen as the future of conservative activity – as well as a very polarized personality.

The son of the architect who grew up in the Chicago suburb of Chicago, Brucedbec Heights, Kirk attended a community college near Chicago before leaving to devote himself to political activity.

He also submitted a request to no avail in favor of West Point, the American Military Elite Academy, often referred the tongue to the cheek to the absence of a university degree when engaging in discussions with students and academics on internal topics such as postmodernism.

He was a thirsty public speaker, as he toured the country speaking on Republican occasions, and many of them were common among the members of the advanced tea party, and his daily modern radio presentation was millions of followers on social media.

The turning point, which he started at the age of 18, aims to spread conservative ideals in the American colleges with liberal tendencies.

The event was on Wednesday at the University of Utah Valley, where he was shot, the start of a tour at a multi -campus turning point, during which the attendees were invited to discuss Kerk on similar issues.

Social media often often often offered his daily name, which bears clips from it, which he discusses with students on issues such as climate change, faith and family values.

He was known for his opposing views to move and skepticize the Covid-19s. In 2020, he publicly promoted the wrong claim that the elections won by Joe Biden were stolen from Trump.

Control of arms was among many political and social issues that he discussed in events and podcasts. A few months ago, Kirk said: “It is worth having a cost, unfortunately, some of the deaths enjoyed by weapons every year so that we can the second amendment.”

A clip from Trump himself plays at the beginning of the Kirk podcast: “I want to thank Charlie, he is an incredible man, his soul, his love for this country.

Turning Point Usa – a large part of his legacy – began after President Barack Obama began to be re -elected in 2012.

Its mission, which aims for young people, is to organize students “to promote the principles of financial responsibility, free markets and the limited government.” She now has chapters in more than 850 colleges.

He played a major role in the exit voltage of Trump and other Republican candidates in the elections last year. It was also widely credited with assisting tens of thousands of new voters and stirring Arizona to Trump.

The relationship between Kirk and Trump grew after Trump’s victory, as Kirk attended the inauguration of Trump in January in Washington, DC, and he became a regular visitor at the White House during Trump’s periods in office.

According to the New York Times, the golf played with Trump just two days before Trump’s presidential opened for the year 2025.

In January, he traveled with Ibn Trump, Donald Trump Junior, to Greenland, where the president who saved at the time was arguing that the United States should have the Arctic lands.

Kirk also addressed the Oxford Federation – a discussion association at the University of Oxford – earlier this year, and in 2020, he wrote the best -selling books, Maga Great, in reference to the Trump campaign again.

The Christian Christianity and his young family were in the forefront and the center in his policy.

He married Erika Kirk, a former businesswoman and Miss Arizona, in May 2021 and had two children later.

According to its website, she is the Probling Foundation, a faith -based clothing line, a bodcast host and the founder of two unbalanced organizations.

It often appeared by the Kirk team in public connections.

The couple was regularly posted on Instagram about their family lives, but he kept their children’s identities in particular.

In August, Kirk posted a picture of himself on the beach, celebrating his third daughter’s birthday.

Erika Kirk is currently studying for a PhD in Bible studies.

On Wednesday, before the event when her husband was shot, Posted online: “Psalm 46: 1 – God is a shelter and our strength, a very present help in trouble.”

The identity of the attacker is still unknown and the collective chase is ongoing.

In the evening briefing on Wednesday, which was held by law enforcement agents in Utah, they said they were studying CCTV from the university because they believed that the suspect was “wearing black clothes” and “individual shot” came from a roof.

The BBC has been achieved from two geographical video clip showing a dark shape moving on the roof of a university building, determined as the Lucy Center, which is located about 137 meters (150 yards) where Kirk was sitting.

At a press conference on Thursday, the Uttah Bou Masson Public Safety Commissioner said that the suspect’s movements soon were followed, and showed that the attacker had jumped from the roof of the building from where a deadly bullet was transferred and escaped from the camps to a nearby neighborhood.

He added that the suspect seemed to be in the age of the college and that they were “mixing well with the college institution.”

The private agent of the Federal Investigation Office, Robert Bouhels, said that the agency had regained what it believed was the weapon used in the shooting, a high -power work rifle, in a wooded area where the authorities believe the attacker fled.

He also found a impression of shoes and a fingerprint, which they analyze.

The police continue to search for the suspect and were carrying out searches from the door to the door in the Yuttah state in the wake of the attack.

In the aftermath of the shooting on Wednesday, two people were arrested shortly after that, but they were later released with officials saying they had “no relationships” to the accident.