LOGAN, Utah (AP) — Thousands of supporters came together to honor Charlie Kirk Tuesday night as Turning Point USA's college tour returned to Utah for the first time since its founder was assassinated on a college campus in the state earlier this month.
The stop, at Utah State University in Logan, is about two hours north of Utah Valley University, where Kirk was killed Sept. 10 by a gunman who fired a single shot through the crowd while Kirk was speaking.
“If you are expecting a a funeral, if you came to mourn the death of America, the death of masculinity and femininity, of faith, of truth, then you are at the wrong event. It’s not over. It is not even close," said conservative podcast host Alex Clark, who kicked off the event, which she described as the the group’s largest on campus tour.
“I’m not here to eulogize Charlie Kirk," she went on, but to “pass the torch on to every single one of you."
Hours before the event, the Logan campus temporarily evacuated a building after a “non-explosive” device was found and detonated by the bomb squad “out of an abundance of caution,” the school said in an alert to students. The building is safe, the school said.
Authorities are investigating but the university does not believe the package was a threat or related to the Turning Point event, school spokesperson Amanda DeRito told the AP.
Security at the event was tight, with a heavy law enforcement presence surrounding the arena, metal detectors and drones flying overhead. The college where Kirk was killed lacked several key safety measures and practices that have become standard at events around the country, an Associated Press review has found.
The assassination of a top ally of President Donald Trump and a significant figure in his Make America Great Again movement has galvanized conservatives, who have vowed to carry on Kirk’s mission of encouraging young voters to embrace conservatism and moving American politics further right. Kirk has been celebrated as a “martyr” by many on the right, and Turning Point USA has seen tens of thousands of requests to create new chapters in high schools and colleges.
Tuesday’s event, scheduled before Kirk’s death, showcased how Turning Point has been pressing forward without its influential leader, who headlined many of its events and drew crowds. The tour is headlined by some of the biggest conservative names, including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Glenn Beck.
Blame game
Tuesday’s event featured Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Rep. Andy Biggs and former Rep. Jason Chaffetz in a panel that blamed the left for stoking rhetoric that led to the assassination, with Biggs saying it was “coming from one side.”
Chaffetz was at the Sept. 10 event when Kirk was killed.
“It was scary because you didn’t know if there was going to be more shots fired," he said. “You didn’t know if that was the end."
Cox, who has been criticized as not conservative enough, was repeatedly booed and jeered by the crowd, including when he acknowledged that, “There are violent people on the far right.”
Still, he criticized the idea that speech equates to violence.
“You think that then, because someone said something that you don’t like, that’s violence towards me which justifies me being violent towards this person for speaking. And that’s exactly what happened in this case, and that that is a destructive mind virus in our society today,' he said.
Attendees pay tribute
The school’s basketball stadium was filled with red “MAGA” hats, chants of “USA,” and blaring country music before the event kicked off Tuesday. Volunteers handed out posters reading, “I am Charlie Kirk” and “In honor of Charlie Kirk, this is the turning point.”
Attendees said they’d come to pay tribute to Kirk alongside others he’d inspired and to try to heal together.
“I feel like the tension is super high, especially being in the same state where it happened. But I’m super excited for it,” said Jada Chilton, from Salt Lake City. “It’s kind of just healing my soul kind of being that I actually get to come to a Turning Point event even though the main spirit of it isn’t here.”
Chilton said listening to Kirk on TV, in debates and on his podcast had been her “daily regimen.” She’d bought tickets to the event 30 minutes before the assassination, which left her shattered.
“I was on the floor sobbing,” she said.
She described Tuesday's security as “insane,” with officials on roofs, drones overhead and police officers “everywhere."
“It makes you feel more comfortable, but it just is sad and disappointing, honestly, that we have to,” she said.
Michelle Hlavaty from Logan, Utah, said she bought her ticket before the assassination, and was heartened to see the tour going on. She’s been listening to Kirk’s podcast daily since 2016.
“I love that Charlie had that impact on so many people and so many people have come out of the woodwork and declared who they are religiously,” she said.
Charlie Kirk’s widow says, ’We have our marching orde
rs’
Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, has pledged to continue the organization’s work. She now oversees Turning Point and said she will lead the group as her late husband intended, closely following plans he laid out to her and to staff.
“We’re not going anywhere. We have the blueprints. We have our marching orders,” she said last week on Kirk’s podcast, which she also vowed would continue with rotating hosts and decades of clips of her husband.
“My husband’s voice will live on,” she said.
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Colvin reported from New York and Cooper from Phoenix.