Orem, Utah, a sleepy suburb of roughly 100,000 people at the feet of the Wasatch mountains, never asked for the national spotlight.
But in the wake of the killing of far-right activist Charlie Kirk in front of a packed audience at a university in the heart of town, the weight of the nation’s gaze was inescapable. A forest of American flags planted atop a highway interpass next to Utah Valley University (UVU), where Kirk was shot. A campus on lockdown and makeshift memorials. The ubiquitous presence of local cops and FBI agents.
With the shock of Kirk’s death fresh and a manhunt for the shooter still under way, many in the community are coming to terms with the magnitude of what happened here, and are split on the legacy Kirk leaves behind.
“I’m sad and just shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened in Utah, to this extent,” said Brice Nokes, 27. On Thursday, Nokes was standing at the UVU campus entrance holding a sign that said “I believe in you” in bold capital letters. He took it to the university’s entrance today, hoping to help spread positivity in the wake of the killing.
The campus, usually abuzz with more than 40,000 undergraduates, was silent on this sunny Thursday morning, with roads blocked off and law enforcement and media outnumbering civilians. Caution tape blocked off the amphitheater where the 31-year-old Turning Point USA founder, a mammoth figure in the world of rightwing youth organizing, was shot.
Kirk’s “Prove Me Wrong” pop-up tent – where attendees were invited to debate the rightwing provocateur on his tour of college campuses – was still standing. Students’ personal belongings, from backpacks to water bottles, were strewn throughout the stand, left on the ground mid-escape.
Tanner Lundquist, 31, and a former UVU student who came back to campus on Thursday, said that his community was “not meant to be on the world stage”.
“For me it’s very disturbing to see a courtyard where I used to do homework on CNN, on Fox News,” Lundquist said.
Makeshift memorials and vigils have popped up across town over the last 24 hours. Beneath UVU’s large steel and green nameplate, a bouquet of flowers was strewn on the sidewalk. American flags and homemade placards adorned the sign outside Timpanogos regional hospital, where Kirk was pronounced dead.
Wendy Lucas, 44, wearing a camouflage cap, walked up to a memorial at UVU, said a prayer, and added a small American flag and two small panda action figures to the pile. The pandas were for Kirk’s two children, Lucas said.
“Every life should be valuable,” Lucas said. “This should not happen.”
Faith runs deep in Utah county, which comprises Orem, Provo and much of the southern greater Salt Lake area, and where an estimated 72% of the population are Mormon.
Kimberly Clark, 50, speaking in the parking lot of the Orem Walmart, said that the shooting has left her community shaken, and, like many, she has taken comfort in the Church of Latter-day Saints.
“It was surreal, but I feel like the community, more than anything, is pulling together,” Clark said. “I’ve had friends text me making sure my kids were OK.”
Emily Patterson, 51, said that many of the students fleeing the shooting gathered nearby at the white-sided, 218ft tall Orem temple.
“A lot of people walked straight over to it and stayed on the grounds or went in,” Patterson said. “They were gathering there to feel comfort.”
An inflection point for political violence?
Some conservatives in town expected that Kirk’s death would become a flashpoint in an already deeply divided nation, and anticipated that tensions might “boil over.”
Lundquist and his father, Steven, 64, both described themselves as conservative, and saw the shooting as an inflection point for political violence – likening what might come next to a dam breaking.
Lundquist said he was speaking out because he “feared being silenced”, and felt that Kirk stood for the same.
“A god-fearing country with Christian values. That’s what Charlie Kirk represented, what we’re being told is evil, what we’re being told is wrong,” Tanner said. “Our fear is that that voice is going to be shut by college campuses where the young minds of America are being educated.”
His father, Steven, echoed the concerns of liberal indoctrination, calling those in higher education “godless”. Steven also said the killing made him concerned about openly practicing his Christian faith.
“I go to church every Sunday and I bring my family,” he said, “I look at those doors and I wonder if somebody is gonna burst in here with semi-automatic weapons and start blasting.”
Steven acknowledged that his fears were “not different” from those faced by children going to school in the United States, where shootings are grimly commonplace. Kirk himself was outspoken in his support of the second amendment, saying that a certain number of gun deaths every year was a “prudent deal” to “protect our God-given rights”.
Some, however, said it was important not to to shy away from Kirk’s divisive viewpoints, or “put him on a pedestal”.
Jonathan Crow, 24, was alarmed by both the shooting and the legacy Kirk leaves behind.
“We condemn any form of political violence ever to exist,” Crow said, standing outside a grocery store with bags in his hands. “But we should also condemn the hateful rhetoric Charlie Kirk has had throughout his entire life against women, people of color, against minority groups, against the Muslim community.”
Isabella Roque, 24, felt similarly, drawing a clear boundary between Kirk’s actions in life and his violent death.
“His death has a specific meaning, which is that it’s important not to react violently to political disagreements,” Roque said, standing beside Crow. “His life meant something else.”
To Roque, it is important to not “romanticize” Kirk.
“His death is not private. His death does not only affect his family and his friends, it affects the entire nation,” Roque said. “In that respect, I think that it is even more important to be honest about who he was.”