OREM, Utah — One by one, mourners made their way to the college campus where conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and to the hospital where he had been rushed and then pronounced dead.
Some were longtime devotees who said he had changed their lives. Others had barely heard of him but wanted to promote civility and healing in a suburban stretch of Utah’s Wasatch Front that they hope will remain a peaceful “Family City USA.”
Some were angry and wanted people to know why.
Kirk was shot and killed Sept. 10 at Utah Valley University, where he had brought his speaking tour to a rapt crowd. Authorities were still hunting for the shooter the next day. The university remained out of session, reeling after the horror of Kirk’s final appearance.
The mourners dropped flowers, shed tears and carried signs with pointed messages. A makeshift memorial took shape in front of Timpanogos Regional Hospital. It grew through the morning as people left flowers, lit candles and placed supportive placards around the entry sign on the hospital’s lawn. “Peacemakers wanted!” read one sign propped against an ornamental tuft of grass.
Annika Orozco brought white roses to lay at the site. The 25-year-old Orozco, who lives in Provo, had been born at the hospital.
She said Kirk had profoundly influenced the course of her life, starting when she was 18 and first saw a video of him. Following his message, she said, she had married instead of going to college, and had become an entrepreneur. She and her husband are preparing to open a gym this winter.
“I actually didn’t go to college because of Charlie Kirk and it’s the best decision I ever made,” Orozco said. “I believe strongly that college is teaching woke ideology.”
It’s something she said Kirk drove home on campuses by telling women they were being taught that marriage is wrong, or a trap.
Back home: Kirk in Phoenix after JD Vance carried his casket onto Air Force Two
She said Kirk taught that America was founded on “correct ideals” and that God and family should be top priorities. She chose white roses to symbolize God and angels in Kirk’s honor.
While sad and angry over the shooting, she said, she believes those ideals will prevail, and that her generation will be the one to save the country from “crumbling, woke ideals.”
Violence won’t quiet Kirk’s voice, she said.
“If their agenda was to silence this movement, that was the worst thing that they could have possibly done,” she said.
“I think they created millions of Charlie Kirks.”
‘We need to look past’ divisions, Orem councilmember says
Orem City Councilmember Jenn Gale laid daisies at the memorial, then walked around it to read and photograph the tributes left there.
She especially appreciated the sign that said, “Peacemakers wanted!” Neighbors should view each other as neighbors, she said, and not as “woke” or “MAGA.”
Where did Charlie Kirk live? What to know about his ties to Arizona
“We need to look past all that and get to community,” Gale said.
She had not known much about Kirk before, she said, and had visited the memorial to support community members and see how they were grieving. That such an event could happen in her city came as a shock, she said, coming shortly after she had told someone that she believed Orem to be among the safest places in the world. It’s called “Family City USA,” she noted.
“Their safe world has been violated,” Gale said. Still, she expects residents to rally to each other’s support.
“We’re resilient,” she said. “I believe we will find the good in this and that we’ll love each other more and better.”
Kirk shooting is ‘opening my eyes’
Albert Berriel, of Provo, was unfamiliar Charlie Kirk until his 30-year-old daughter called from Avondale, Arizona, crying about the shooting. He searched for video and liked the message he heard from Kirk.
“It’s opening my eyes,” the 56-year-old said.
On the morning of Sept. 11, Berriel brought two candles to light at the hospital memorial. Tears streaked down his face after he placed the candles among dozens of others.
‘They want us silenced’: College Republicans respond to Charlie Kirk’s death
“It hurts,” he said.
“We live in the United States. Our freedom is very important to us, to me. What he spoke was right.”
‘A turning point’ for the nation?
Kelly Quirarte, 57, said she punched a wall in her Lehi, Utah, home when she heard about Kirk’s shooting.
“Why here?” she wondered. “Why in Utah? We’re a red state. This shouldn’t’ happen here.”
The next afternoon, she brought her daughter and three grandchildren to the Utah Valley University campus where Kirk was shot to pay their respects and leave a bouquet.
Kirk’s message of faith stirred her, she said, and it will live on through the Trump administration. He was the same age as her daughter, she said, and “had so much ahead of him. He was sent here to do God’s work.”
“I think more people need God in their lives,” she said. “I think we need God in schools, and Trump’s going to do that.”
Opinion: Charlie Kirk’s death is tragic. And the truth is still the truth
For now, Quirarte said, she hopes the shock of this shooting will cause people to reflect, to discuss their differences, and to disagree more peacefully.
“I think this is a turning point,” she said, echoing the name of the organization that Kirk led. “I really do. I think this is going to be a turning point. I pray that’s the case.”
Kirk ‘would sit down and talk to people’
Alex Shepherd drove to Orem from his home in Boise, Idaho, the evening after Kirk’s killing with a message for the media and others assembled near the scene of the crime.
“Democrats killed Charlie Kirk IMO,” he wrote on a placard, the initials meaning “in my opinion.” He said he felt it was important to add that part in honor of Kirk, who he said was a First Amendment champion. Shepherd didn’t want to censor anyone, he said, but wanted to use his right of free speech to make his point.
Left-wing politicians and media seeded the nation with hatred by labeling their opponents “Nazis” and “fascists.”
“That leads people to believe that we’re evil, we’re the devil and Charlie Kirk is the devil,” he said, “and then of course someone’s going to go and kill him because that kind of rhetoric is being spread.”
“I think we need to call them out on it.”
Shepherd said he concurred with Kirk’s views that people cannot change their gender, that religion is key to a healthy society and that First Amendment rights are vital.
“Charlie Kirk was amazing,” he said. “I didn’t agree with him on everything. But unlike a lot of online influencers, he would come to college campuses, he would sit down and talk with people, and talk is so important in today’s society. That prevents political polarization.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mourners say Charlie Kirk started a movement that won’t end