Charlie Kirk, who founded Turning Point USA in 2012, was shot at approximately 12:23 p.m. while speaking at an outdoor event on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Utah Valley University closed its campus for the remainder of the week. Utah Governor Spencer Cox described the killing as a political assassination.
Tyler James Robinson surrendered to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office on the evening of September 11, 2025. On September 16, 2025, the Utah County Attorney’s Office filed an Information in Utah’s Fourth Judicial District Court charging him with seven counts, among them aggravated murder as a capital felony, and Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty. The charging document alleges a victim targeting enhancement — that Robinson selected Kirk because of Robinson’s belief or perception regarding Kirk’s political expression — which is a prosecution allegation rather than a finding of fact. Robinson has not been tried. The last retrievable state of the prosecuting office’s docket page — its capture of 13 June 2026, the live page having since gone to 404 — records a preliminary hearing set for May 18-20, 2026, a defence motion to continue it argued on May 8, and the denial on February 24, 2026 of a defence motion to disqualify the Utah County Attorney’s Office. Whether the preliminary hearing went ahead on those dates is not established by any source reachable for this entry.
The Utah Valley University appearance was the first in a series of campus events Turning Point USA had planned nationwide, in the question-and-answer format Kirk commonly used. On September 18, 2025, the organization’s board elected his widow, Erika Kirk, as chief executive and chair.