Featured Image Credit: Instagram/@staxioms
Topics: Charlie Kirk, US News, Politics, Crime
Joe Harker
A man who was speaking to Charlie Kirk moments before he was shot dead has opened up being the last person to talk with him.
The controversial American speaker was shot dead on Tuesday (10 September) at an event at Utah Valley University as he sat underneath a canopy bearing the words 'prove me wrong'.
The FBI has managed to track some of the shooter's movements as they made their way to the roof and have since recovered the weapon they believe fired the fatal shot that killed Kirk.
Images of a person of interest in the case have been released in the hopes that a public appeal might help track them down.
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Just before he died, the 31-year-old Kirk was sitting in place speaking to a member of the event crowd who had come to talk to him.
The crowd member, Hunter Kozak, asked Kirk: "Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?"
The conservative speaker replied 'too many', before Kozak told him only five transgender Americans had been involved with mass shootings in the past decade and asked Kirk how many mass shootings there have been in total.
Kirk said 'counting or not counting gang violence?' and it was then he was shot in the neck, giving him a wound which resulted in his death.
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Kozak has since spoken out on social media to say the death of Kirk was 'awful', posting a video where he explained that while he disagreed with Kirk, he condemned the shooting in the strongest terms.
He said: "First off, you sick f**king psychos that think this is the answer, it’s not. I don’t know what else to say. It's f**king not, it's awful and a father doesn't have his kids any more.
"Charlie had two kids and a wife, and not to make this about me, but I have two kids and a wife and if my one-year-old boy, like his one-year-old boy will grow up without memories of his dad.
"It’s a tragedy and it’s hard to grapple with. I'm part of a community that's struggling to grapple with this."
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He added: "People have obviously pointed to the irony that I was — the point that I was trying to make is how peaceful the left was. Right before he got shot."
Kirk had spoken about gun violence many times in his life, including saying he thought the US having some gun deaths each year was 'worth it' so Americans could continue to own guns, and he claimed transgender people represented 'a throbbing middle finger to God'.
In the moments following the shooting, the suspected killer is seen in footage jumping down from the roof of the building and running off the university campus. A manhunt is ongoing.