Who We Choose to Mourn: Charlie Kirk, Iryna Zarutska, and America’s Selective Grief
I feel the need to address the elephant in the room. There is no getting around it. I don't like talking politics on this site, but I will when it affects my mental health, and this has.
The murder of Charlie Kirk
Call it an assassination if you wish. It's all semantics. Kirk was a very popular, controversial, and polarizing political activist and media personality with a huge following. Many disagreed with his beliefs, but, first and foremost, we need to remember Charlie Kirk was a human being--a husband, a father, and a son.
No matter your political, cultural, or religious beliefs, there is no place for violence in a democracy which prides itself on freedom of speech. I would amend that statement to say there is no place in humanity for violence, period.
My philosophy is simple – every individual should just worry about their own business and leave me, and everyone else, alone. Don't look over the fence to see what I am doing and I won't look over the fence to see what you are doing. Believe what you want to believe, but don't knock on my door and try to convince me that you are smarter than me and that you know the secrets of life and everlasting happiness.
Here were some of Kirk's more controversial positions or statements:
- "We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s." (America First conference, December 2023)
- "If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified." (The Charlie Kirk Show, 1/23/24)
- "Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more." (The Charlie Kirk Show, 5/19/23)
- "If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?" (The Charlie Kirk Show, 1/3/24)
- "America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America." (The Charlie Kirk Show, 4/30/25)
- Martin Luther King Jr. was “awful. He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe." (America First conference, December 2023)
- "Jewish donors have been the No. 1 funding mechanism of radical, open border neoliberal quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and nonprofits. This is a beast created by secular Jews." (The Charlie Kirk Show, 10/26/2023)
- "Part of the same part of scripture is in Leviticus 18, is that thou shall lay with another man shall be stoned to death, just saying." (The Charlie Kirk Show, 6/8/24)
- He criticized immigration, saying it watered down America.
- He called DEI programs "racist against Whites."
- He was fiercely anti-abortion, calling it murder.
- He argued that feminism "destroyed the family," and that he longed for the old days when women prioritized being mothers and taking care of the home.
Some may agree with him on parts, or all, of his beliefs. That's fine. You're a conservative Republican who voted for Trump. That's your right and, congratulations, you have the country you deserve.
I don't agree with many of his beliefs. And that is fine, too. Don't be slashing my tires or egging my house because of it, though.
I did respect Kirk for going around to college campuses and not being afraid to debate with people. That's what he was doing at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on September 10. It is something he did all around the world.
His speaking tour was called "The American Comeback." Written on the tent that he was sitting under were the words "Prove Me Wrong."
The Irony
Kirk had this to say on April 5, 2023 at a Turning Point USA – the organization he c0-founded when he was just 18 years old to motivate young people to join right-wing causes – event:
“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational."
The last question that was asked to him before he was killed on September 10 was, "Do you know how many mass shootings there have been in America over the last 10 years?”
Kirk responded, "Counting or not counting gang violence?"
When he lowered his microphone to await the response, he was shot in the jugular vein in his neck from a sniper positioned on a roof almost 200 yards away.
The Sixty We Don’t Lower Flags For
Every day there are over sixty murders in the United States.
As a matter of fact, I was getting ready to write a story about Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed to death, recently – for absolutely no reason (the murderer said he thought "she was reading my mind") – on a train by a deranged man sitting behind her. The poor woman had just finished her shift at a pizza shop and was sitting in her seat looking at her phone, minding her business, trying to get home. She had only been in the U.S. for three years.
Have we been asked to lower our flags to half-staff for her?
In June, a Minnesota politician, Melissa Hartman, and her husband, Mark, were fatally shot in their home. Hartman was a prominent Democrat in the State House of Representatives, serving as Speaker since 2019, who advocated for environmental protection, racial equality, reproductive rights, and gun control.
Earlier that same day, State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were also shot by the same individual. Fortunately, they survived.
Did the President of the United States call the Minnesota Governor to offer his condolences like he did with the Utah Governor following Kirk's murder?
No. He declined to call Minnesota Governor, and 2024 Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, Tim Walz, because he considered him "whacked out" and "a mess." Here is the exact quote from:
“I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out. I’m not calling him. Why would I call him? The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. I could be nice and call him, but why waste time?”
How's that for the person who is responsible for being the Comforter-In-Chief of the country?
The very same day of the Kirk murder, there was a shooting at a high school in Colorado. Not only was it the same day, it was almost at the very exact time – off by only a minute. As Kirk slumped over in his chair after getting shot in Utah, a 16-year-old student opened fire at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County, Colorado. Two students were injured and the shooter died.
A friend of mine had a student in a neighboring elementary school only a block away from that high school. Donald Trump, to date, has not mentioned anything about the shooting.
Detective Trump
The reason Trump didn't have time to offer his condolences to the community of Evergreen was because he was busy working the Kirk case. Trump was the one who broke the news that Kirk had died. He was also the first to report on his social media network that the suspect in the murder had been arrested.
Did Lyndon Johnson announce the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963? Was Johnson the first to announce that Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed on April 4, 1968? Was LBJ the first to announce that fellow Democrat, Robert F. Kennedy, had died on June 6 of that same year as result of a gunshot wound sustained the night before?
Of course not. That is left for doctors at hospitals and law enforcement departments.
'Wait for me!' – FBI Director Patel
Trump had help in his role of criminal detective, though. Every Batman needs their Robin.
There was a press conference on the night of September 11, specifically, to release a video of the suspected gunman fleeing the scene and asking for the public's help in identifying the suspect.
It had been 31 hours since Kirk was shot and killed. Investigators still were not able to identify the suspect, despite having pictures and surveillance footage of the individual. In the press conference the following day after the suspect's arrest, they even said they knew the car the suspect had arrived in – a gray Dodge Challenger.
Despite all of this information, authorities still held this evening press conference to seek the public's help. The FBI even offered a $100,000 reward for any information that would lead to the arrest of the individual.
How much more information did they need? This is the FBI we are talking about here.
Surely the Director of the FBI, Kash Patel, would be able to answer some of these questions. He was at the evening press conference. You couldn't miss him. He looked like a SWAT team member ready to raid a house, wearing his official-looking jacket with the letters F-B-I emblazoned on it in large yellow lettering.
The start of the press conference had been delayed from its original start time. Rumor has it that the press conference was delayed because they were waiting for Patel's arrival and they didn't want to go ahead with releasing the video without him there.
Patel was probably waiting for his Amazon Prime next-day delivery of his FBI jacket to arrive. Imagine his excitement when the box arrived and he got to open it.
So the authorities were giving the suspect an extra couple of hours to flee because the FBI Director, essentially, wanted a photo op. Nothing better than putting the interests of one person ahead of the safety of the public.
Or maybe he had something to say at the press conference. He needed to be there. He must have something important to say.
Nope. He never said a word.
The Arrest
The following morning another press conference was announced. Patel was there --this time in a suit and tie. The Governor of Utah started the press conference, "We got him."
Oh, really?
Was the suspect caught hiding in a cabin deep in the woods like the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski? Was he found hundreds of miles away sleeping in his car at a rest stop like the DC snipers? Maybe he was hiding in somebody's boat like the Boston Marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?
Again, the answer is no.
Get this – after the shooting, the suspect, a 22-year old named Tyler Robinson, went home and was there the whole time! The suspect's father is the one who recognized his son from the videos released and convinced his son – with some help from his pastor – to turn himself in.
That was some great police work.
That didn't stop Patel from patting himself on the back. Oh, that's right – did I forget to mention that he actually spoke at this press conference?
"This is what happens when you let good cops be cops," he started out his prepared statement. What is that supposed to mean? Good cops?
Patel made sure to start by thanking President Trump for being so "incredibly supportive," "for having their back the entire way," and for giving him the resources the authorities needed to apprehend the suspect in such a "historic" quick manner.
Is 33 hours "historically" fast? And how much resources (i.e. "money") was spent to catch a guy who fled a rally of 3,000 people after jumping off the roof of a building, walking through an open campus, and then head home to watch CNN on his couch and have dinner with his family?
I don't seem to remember it took that long or that much "resources" to catch Lee Harvey Oswald. In fact, it took an hour and twenty minutes. Let's take a look at some other cases:
⏱️ Historic? How Fast Were Assassins Caught?
- Charles Guiteau (Garfield, 1881): Grabbed immediately at the train station.
- Leon Czolgosz (McKinley, 1901): Subdued within seconds at the Buffalo expo.
- Sirhan Sirhan (RFK, 1968): Tackled and disarmed on the spot in the hotel pantry.
- John Hinckley Jr. (Reagan attempt, 1981): Pinned down by Secret Service instantly.
- Mehmet Ali Ağca (Pope John Paul II, 1981): Seized by guards and bystanders immediately in St. Peter’s Square.
- Lee Harvey Oswald (JFK, 1963): Arrested 1 hr 20 min later in a Dallas movie theater.
- Tyler Robinson (Charlie Kirk, 2025): 2 days later, after his father convinced him to surrender.
Patel would mention the word "historic" three times. He also mentioned "at my direction" twice when talking about releasing, first, the two photos of the suspect wearing sunglasses and, secondly, the surveillance footage showing a blurry figure running across the roof of a building. Thank goodness for Patel's hard work.
Rush to Judgement
Patel, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, was also the guy who posted on social media on September 11 at 5:44 p.m. – 29 hours after the shooting and four hours prior to Robinson's arrest:
“The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody.”
Patel's post helped fuel backlash against 71-year-old George Zinn who was shown being dragged off by authorities following the shooting. One person could be heard screaming at him, "How dare you!"
Video of Zinn being dragged off went viral. Combined with Patel's irresponsible social media post, many assumed Zinn to be the assassin.
It just goes to show the dangers of social media and how false information can get diffused so easily and, more importantly, quickly. However, we mostly expect this kind of gossip culture from kids, not adults, and certainly not from our high-level government officials.
False Blame
And we all know it is not just the FBI Director who likes to gossip and give out false information. So does the President of the United States, his MAGA cult followers, and his Republican cronies.
This is what Trump said immediately after Kirk's killing:
"We have to beat the hell out of radical left lunatics, because that’s what they are. They’re vicious, horrible people. They’re politically very smart, but they’re radical left lunatics. And we can’t allow this to happen.”
This is the same guy who incited the January 6 Capitol riots by making these statements that day:
- “We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
- “We’re going to walk down … I’ll be with you. We’re going to walk down to the Capitol … and we’re going to try and give [Republicans] the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
- "You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong."
These same supporters Trump was rallying were the same rioters who were displaying nooses and chanting "Hang Mike Pence" as they penetrated and desecrated the Capitol Building.
A 42-year-old Capitol Police officer, Brian Sicknick, was one of at least three deaths that day.
Trump has said this week that he will be giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest honor that can be given to a civilian – posthumously to Charlie Kirk. Was Brian Sicknick given a Presidential Medal of Freedom for protecting one of the country's biggest symbols of democracy on January 6?
Trump and other Republicans were quick to blame the Left for Kirk's assassination. Of course the gunman would have to be someone on the other end of the political and philosophical spectrum that would want to eliminate Kirk. Trump believed it and posted it. Several Republicans did as well.
In a video address prior to the arrest of Robinson, Trump stated:
“Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives … My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity … including the organizations that fund it and support it."
The Killer was From a Family of Trump Supporters
Whoops! Robinson's grandmother has come out and said that she is confused because:
My son, his dad, is a Republican for Trump. Most of my family members are Republican. I don’t know any single one who’s a Democrat.
The Governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, in the press conference announcing Robinson's arrest said:
For 33 hours, I was praying that if this had to happen here that it wouldn’t be one of us — that somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country. Sadly, that prayer was not answered the way I hoped for.
Why would a Governor of a state say that? So he was hoping the killer was an immigrant?
Cox's 15 Minutes of Fame
Governor Cox must have been channeling Adam Sandler in Wedding Singer when Sandler's character yells at a bride's father for complaining he didn't pay him for his thoughts on life:
‘Well, I have the microphone and you don't, so you will listen to every damn word I have to say’”
Here is how Cox prefaced his statement at the September 12 press conference:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I get the microphone, so I hope you'll permit me a moment just to share a few more thoughts about where are and how we got here and maybe a little bit of where we go from here."
To paraphrase the words of the father of the bride in The Wedding Singer, "Mr. Cox, we are not here to hear your thoughts on life." Alas, he did have the microphone:
"This is a dark day for our state. It's a tragic day for our nation."
"To my young friends out there, you are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage. It feels like rage is the only option. We can choose a different path. Your generation has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now. We need moral clarity right now."
So the Governor is saying that our generation f****d up. Sorry, guys and gals. You need to clean up the mess.
So he is admitting the country is a mess right now? And who has been the president for most of the last decade? And why can't we clean up our own mess? I don't remember things being this bad prior to – let me think – 2017?
One of the greatest speeches I have ever heard was made by Robert F. Kennedy on the night that Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. Kennedy was running for president and had a campaign stop in Indianapolis scheduled for that night. His staff urged him to cancel. There were riots going on all across the country. It was a volatile situation.
Kennedy said he wanted to address the crowd. Against his advisor's advice, in front of a throng of predominantly Black people who didn't yet know that King had been killed, RFK stood on the back of a flatbed truck and delivered an impromptu speech for the ages:
In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black--considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible--you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization--black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.
Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
Now that is a speech from the heart with no agenda. It is a speech we should listen to every day. That night, Indianapolis was one of the few major cities in the United States that did not suffer violent, fiery riots.
Final Thoughts
Governor Cox asked, “Is this the end of a dark chapter in our history, or the beginning of a darker chapter?” Robert Kennedy could have asked the same question in 1968. Lyndon Johnson in 1963. Andrew Johnson in 1865. Saint Peter in A.D. 33. Augustus in 44 B.C.
The book is infinite and the chapters never end.
Nowadays, we are not used to hearing about assassinations, especially seeing video footage of it. In the 1960's, assassinations happened all too frequently – JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X.
The video of Kirk getting shot in the neck, him slumping to his left, and then seeing the blood spurt out the other side of his neck was everywhere on social media. Even if you didn't want to see it, you may have, by mistake. I'm sure a lot of kids saw it.
But that is what murder looks like. Often times it is far more gruesome. And it happens at least sixty times a day in our country.
It is one thing to hear about killing, it is another thing to see it.
But young kids have been de-sensitized to killing and gruesomeness. Watching JFK get his head blown off in the Zapruder film is nothing to them compared to what they see every day, eight hours a day, playing video games.
Younger generations have grown up playing Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and Gears of War—franchises that reward headshots with extra bonus points. Kids are trained how to plan and hunt down people. They are trained to shoot. They are trained to cheer for kills. They are, inadvertently, taught how to devalue life.
Some kids struggle to flip the switch between fiction and reality. Reports suggest the gun and ammunition tied to Robinson carried engravings from Helldivers 2, as well as from online meme culture—another example of how digital world has seeped into the real world.
Then add the easy access these disillusioned individuals have to guns, and the recipe for disaster is complete.
Social media just adds fuel to the fire. It is an easy way for people to communicate with others with similar opinions. If it weren't for the internet, organizations like the groypers wouldn't exist. Without the internet, Charlie Kirk might have been another David Koresh—charismatic and influential at a very local level (Waco, Texas in Koresh's case), but not on a national level.
Meanwhile, incompetent politicians and federal officers haven't learned what to make of social media, either, as they continue to post inaccurate information and false claims. These people of influence don't know the affect their words can have once their thumbs hit the "send" button. It is now out there and on the record.
Prior to the days of social media, a politician would release a statement or give a formal response in front of TV cameras. Those statements would be reviewed by a team of advisors before ever being made public and part of the record.
I feel for Kirk’s wife and his two young children, just as I grieve for Iryna Zarutska, the 23-year-old refugee stabbed to death on a train, and for my friend’s family with kids who went into lockdown during the Evergreen High shooting. I feel for the sixty or seventy families who will lose someone to violence today, and tomorrow, and the day after that.
I pray, just like RFK said, that we replace violence for understanding and compassion and love.
I pray that people in positions of power and authority heed RFK's words.
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