Charlie Kirk was fatally shot through the throat moments after answering a question from an audience member about transgender people and mass shootings, and the student who asked the conservative pundit about that has come forward to put conspiracy theories to rest.
Hunter Kozak, a 29-year-old philosophy and mathematics education student at Utah Valley University, had just challenged Kirk about mass shootings when he heard a single gunshot and saw blood pour from the right-wing influencer's throat, and he spoke to the Washington Post about what happened.
“My brain immediately went: Drop to the floor. Then I thought: That is an assassination. He was the target. It was right on point. Charlie is dead,” Kozak said.
Kozak had asked how many transgender mass shooters there had been in the past 10 years, to which Kirk replied "too many," and a single gunshot rang out as the right-wing influencer uttered his last words – "counting or not counting gang violence" – in response to a question about how many mass shootings had taken place over the last decade.
“Charlie clearly believed in strong debate and argumentation with people who disagreed with him,” Kozak said.
“I wanted to meet him because I think a lot of people don’t engage in conversation — especially with people that I see or interact with," he added. "Their version of changing people’s minds is just protesting or shouting platitudes and sometimes violence, and I think I went there because I don’t see that as the path forward. I’m devastated, and my heart goes so much out to his family. I found out he had kids right after the fact,” he said.
Kozak attended the event on his own, but he has been involved for months with the Unf--- America tour, which was created by the National Ground Game PAC to encourage content creators to attend Turning Point USA events to debate and make viral videos, and he decided to go public to counter questions about his identity and condemn the shooting.
“I don’t know how to make this video," he said. "It’s been a rough 24 hours."
The activist decided to out himself after some right-wing social media accounts suggested he was involved in the shooting.
“A lot of people have been throwing my face around saying ‘look into this guy,’” he said.
Kozak posted a video on TikTok identifying him as “the last person to talk to Charlie Kirk” and playing older clips of him criticizing the influencer's views on transgender people and school shootings, but he also recognized how fundamentally similar he was to the 31-year-old activist.
“Charlie had two kids and a wife, and not to make this about me, but I have two kids and a wife,” he says in the video. “It’s a tragedy and it’s hard to grapple with.”