Photojournalist Recounts Witnessing the Fatal Shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University Campus Event

[00:00] What I was anticipating the story being was how are young people's

[00:05] political views being shaped and how are they responding.

[00:07] What kind of influence he's having on young voters,

[00:11] especially on young men voters.

[00:15] It was kind of like any other assignment.

[00:17] The images I thought would be most important would be the crowd.

[00:20] I didn't really think I would spend a lot of time

[00:23] photographing him necessarily.

[00:25] I remember wondering if there was going to be any fights.

[00:29] I wasn't really considering gun violence,

[00:31] I was considering, you know, two people getting into a shoving match.

[00:34] Charlie is one of my favorite people.

[00:37] He is the smartest man I know in politics.

[00:40] Love the guy.

[00:41] There were also students who were not happy

[00:44] that Charlie Kirk was on their campus.

[00:45] [sigh]

[00:46] A little bit scared.

[00:48] And disgusted.

[00:49] Yeah.

[00:50] It was clearly not just UVU students,

[00:52] there were a lot of people who were from the broader community

[00:54] who were there for Charlie Kirk.

[00:56] There were a lot of older adults with children,

[00:58] elected officials.

[01:00] Politician Phil Lyman was down there,

[01:02] I got some photos of him getting his photo

[01:04] taken with fans of his down there in the front.

[01:08] There was no kind of credentialing system that I was aware of.

[01:11] There didn't seem to be a place for photographers, for media.

[01:15] I made my way to the very front on the north side, right where he would be.

[01:19] I just kind of stood around and I pretended like I was invisible,

[01:23] I just hoped no one would kick me out of that area.

[01:26] When I'm in a crowd that big

[01:27] I’m trying to think about how can I do my job but also remain safe and responsible,

[01:32] and I remember in the amphitheater pit structure at UVU

[01:35] and just being surprised at how treacherous it felt.

[01:39] It's not really made for the amount of people who were there.

[01:41] And I just remember thinking

[01:42] this is maybe not a great venue for this many people.

[01:48] Coming in person, it’s kind of like a sporting event.

[01:50] You can watch it on YouTube after,

[01:53] but like definitely going in person you get the whole crowd vibe

[01:56] and that kind of makes that experience more rememberable

[02:00] I was down there watching all of the goings on behind the scenes,

[02:05] I could see behind the tent some miscellaneous security people back there,

[02:09] plainclothes.

[02:10] And then he started walking up towards the event.

[02:14] He kind of made this gesture like, you know, like

[02:18] almost like what a pro wrestler would do, like, let's go kind of thing.

[02:22] And it wasn't like, mean or anything,

[02:24] but it could have applied to people there in his favor and people against him.

[02:28] It was kind of like, bring it on kind of a thing.

[02:33] He sits down and the line was filled out

[02:35] and he says, we're going to be here for a couple hours.

[02:42] Right before the gunshot went off, I was approaching this railing

[02:47] that was filled with people looking down from the back

[02:51] towards him.

[02:52] Counting or not counting gang violence?

[02:53] Great.

[03:01] And all those people that were blocking my view instantly turn

[03:05] and they're now running at me in terror.

[03:09] I just start photographing.

[03:11] They're ducking and crawling.

[03:13] People are screaming.

[03:15] Oddly, some people are just kind of standing around

[03:18] not doing anything.

[03:21] Within a few seconds, that railing is clear and empty.

[03:24] I move a little to the right and I can see everyone in the bowl

[03:28] is running out as well.

[03:30] My first instinct when the gunshot rang out

[03:32] and everyone dropped to the ground

[03:33] was to

[03:34] stay up and look at what was happening.

[03:36] There's not a good answer to like

[03:38] how do you balance newsgathering and your own safety?

[03:41] Newsgathering is running towards the danger

[03:43] and safety is running away from the danger.

[03:45] I had been watching the crowd and their reactions

[03:48] to things that Charlie Kirk was saying.

[03:50] I was also listening for more gunshots.

[03:52] Is this a mass shooting?

[03:54] I looked back at the table.

[03:55] He was gone.

[03:57] This armed plainclothes officer yelling at people,

[04:00] where did it come from, what’s going on?

[04:02] I remember seeing this guy in shorts and a hat

[04:04] who I assume was a plain clothes police officer

[04:07] who was holding a handgun on his side

[04:09] and I thought oh maybe that's the person who fired the shot,

[04:11] maybe I'm about to be shot.

[04:13] For the few seconds after the first gunshot rang out

[04:15] they didn't know if more bullets were coming, if they were next.

[04:20] It’s only been 60 seconds and everything’s kind of over.

[04:23] From there, it was working to verify

[04:27] what had happened.

[04:29] The grassy, terraced area where everyone had been is empty of people.

[04:33] I think there was like, a walker or a wheelchair just sitting there empty.

[04:37] There were still a lot of people just kind of standing around.

[04:40] Police just trying to clear everybody out.

[04:42] Let’s go, push it up.

[04:43] Unsuccessfully a little bit.

[04:45] We started talking to people about what they had seen.

[04:47] He was talking.

[04:49] We heard the gunshot.

[04:51] And I could see the blood pumping out of his head.

[04:53] Everyone just started running everywhere-

[04:54] Everyone just ran-

[04:55] Bulldozing each other.

[04:56] And then I just realized,

[04:58] I got to get these photos out immediately.

[05:01] I’m at the Charlie Kirk event at UVU

[05:02] As I'm gathering news I also need to put out a dispatch

[05:05] for our social channels.

[05:07] There were a lot of other things I could have been photographing at the time.

[05:10] So much was still happening, but

[05:12] those initial 60 seconds was like,

[05:15] so much more important than everything else

[05:18] at that moment.

[05:19] The cellphone network in the area was absolutely demolished

[05:22] because everyone was texting and calling.

[05:25] OK, who can I get information from?

[05:28] Who can speak officially on this?

[05:30] Was talking to law enforcement who were on the scene,

[05:32] there weren't very many officers on the scene at the beginning.

[05:34] Where should I go to get these answers?

[05:36] And really, no one could give me the answers, especially right away.

[05:40] I went to the Turning Point USA table.

[05:43] There were already rumors spreading, you know, almost immediately.

[05:46] They were hearing word from the hospital that Charlie Kirk was stable.

[05:49] At a traumatic event like this, there will be a place

[05:52] where law enforcement ask media to go.

[05:54] Media staging never materialized.

[05:56] And so it was really hard to get answers as to what was happening.

[05:59] The PIO is going to go there and that’s where they’re going to have media staged.

[06:02] The university had sent texts that had inaccurate information,

[06:05] saying the shooter was caught when the alleged shooter was not caught.

[06:08] We are evacuating this way, please.

[06:11] From the first responders I spoke to, the most damaging piece of misinformation

[06:15] that came from the university was that the alleged shooter was caught.

[06:18] Different folks told me that made it much more difficult to clear the campus,

[06:21] because students that they could stay on campus

[06:23] and students thought they were safe, when really they weren't.

[06:27] Law enforcement was going room by room of the entire campus,

[06:30] trying to clear the buildings and make sure the shooter was not still there.

[06:39] My task was to put together a video as quickly as possible that we could publish.

[06:42] Between filming it and me editing it,

[06:45] we had to rerecord it because between that time we found out

[06:48] that Charlie Kirk had died.

[06:49] We were in the courtyard at the school when one attendee.

[06:52] It was pretty shocking because I hadn't seen him get hit,

[06:55] so I had no idea how serious it was.

[06:58] I was shocked that it would happen in Utah.

[07:01] On a day like that, what you have to do is endless.

[07:04] And you just put your own feelings aside and you just focus on your job.

[07:07] I can't fully express the horror of being at a killing.

[07:14] The gunshot is one thing, but then it's the screams

[07:17] from people in the audience.

[07:19] It's just so chilling to be at that situation

[07:23] that your mind is trying to

[07:26] explain it away or change reality on you.

[07:30] I do find myself on edge a little bit more than I used to,

[07:33] I do find myself feeling more cautious in public than I used to.

[07:38] The biggest emotional impact was how all of the young people there, that day

[07:44] what kind of trauma they were experiencing.

[07:46] It's a generation where they grew up doing active shooter drills.

[07:51] Where do they go from here?