Tens of thousands of people arrived from all over the country, thousands of them since before the sunrise, queued this Sunday, the last day of summer, in Glendale, on the outskirts of Phoenix (Arizona), to the youth leader Maga and ally of Donald Trump Charlie Kirk, killed on September 10.
There were people who arrived as soon as at 3:00, a family that counted that they had flown from the Philippines and kilometer traffic jams when it was still night. At about 9:30, two hours before the start of the memorial, the stadium was full, with capacity for 73,000 people and the crowd came out in stampede towards the other place prepared to follow the funeral: a giant screen on a nearby hockey field, with 20,000 more seats.
The expectation was up to the commotion caused in the United States for the murder of Kirk, Queen the neck while debating in an outdoor act before about 3,000 people at a University of Utah. The image resurrected from this country.
It also influenced the relief of the speakers who came to honor it almost as if it were a state funeral: from the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to his vice president, JD Vance, several members of the cabinet, such as the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, or, and the Widow of the activist, Erika Kirk, who this week took the reins of Turning Point US Conservative youth proselytism that her husband had founded in 2011, at age 18.
Sebastian Gordon, 22, left on Saturday night of Los Angeles, led about 600 kilometers, and arrived at the stadium shortly before 5:00. By then, the tail was so great that I was not sure to secure a place in the stadium. Finally, he did not succeed. Gordon valued Kirk the “message that spread” among young university students like him: “The importance of the family with two parents, man and woman”, and that gave the “conservative battle” on social networks and on campus, two places where to his generation, he added, they are “washing the brain.”
Carol Cassady and Sonia Fraile had come from El Paso (Texas) so that the three teenage children of Fraile They would not miss the “historical moment.” They called Kirk “missionary”, “martyr of common sense” and “example of” defender of freedoms and love for the country. “” His death is before and after. The final proof that 90% of the population of the United States is Maga, ”said Cassady, who carried a cap with the message“ Jesus Christ is my Savior and Donald Trump, my president ”. Sarah and Don Marback, a marriage of sexagenaries of Phoenix, blamed the death of Kirk to social networks, who live from having people“ hooked and divided. ” Close, which will not happen, this country will not join again, ”she said.
Among the crowd that formed a row that turned and turned on itself under the unusually overcast sky, there were families dressed to go to Mass, groups of friends suitcased, mourning, all possible derivations of the bars and stars, t -shirts that said “I am Charlie Kirk” or “Freedom”, messages extracted from the Bible and a young woman with her back to the air, covered by a tattoo of Christ.
Tpusa organized the event in just over a week in collaboration with local, state and federal authorities, which gave it the highest security consideration. Joseph Santiago, head of the Local Police, had warned that they were prepared for a “as complex as the Super Bowl” appointment. The difference is that these types of events “normally,” he added, “prepare for years.” The State Stadium welcomed the American Football League final in 2023.
An armed man
The tension grew when on Saturday it was learned from the arrest of a man armed with a glock gun, a revolver and several knives inside the stadium, which made a policeman pass. Actually, it was Joshua Runkles, 42, and was there in charge of the private security of a “VIP assistant.” He introduced himself to an agent as an Idaho policeman, when he was not. A few hours later, they released them with two positions: supplant the identity of an agent of the law and carry a weapon in a place where he was not authorized.
With those background, it was not strange that the outbreak of a plastic bottle as of a Tpusa truck at about 9:00 would put people who queued, more and more impatiently, on alert.
The event has filled the city’s hotels and galvanized the part of its neighbors who sympathized with Kirk. Born in 1993, Kirck founded TPUSA at 18 in a Lemont garage (Illinois, a state in which he was born and grew). In 2019, he moved to Arizona, and installed the Tpusa offices on the outskirts of Phoenix. A year earlier he had met his widow, Erika Kirk, in New York. In 2021, the promising political and ancient Miss Arizona married. They lived in a Spanish -style mansion with six rooms, six bathrooms and pool in the exclusive Silverleaf urbanization, in Scottsdale, which is also part of the great conurbation of Phoenix, the city scene of America Fest, Annual Convention of Tpusa, a true who is who of the Maga Movement. This year, its celebration is scheduled for December.
In addition to podcasts, Tpusa was dedicated to organizing acts in universities from all over the country, which Kirk never stepped on as a student and judged as indoctrination fields wokewhere the youth leader debated with liberal students on issues in which he held opinions in line with his evangelical faith and his defense of the objectives of Christian nationalism, who included a staunch opposition to abortion, attacks on LGTBIQ+rights, the mockery of positive discrimination initiatives and the defense of the supremacy of Western society or the institution of marriage.
His alleged murderer – according to his family, had embraced in recent times “leftist”
Last Tuesday, Robinson knew that the district prosecutor in charge of processing him and for aggravated murder. According to the accusation sheet, the bullet of a hunting rifle that from a distance of 180 meters successful in the neck of the activist, key in Trump’s triumph in recent elections, for its enormous influence among the voters of generation Z, could kill more people.
Eleven days after the murder, conspiracy theories run online. One of them doubts about the fact that the bullet that killed Kirk did not go through it. This Saturday, Kolret, from Tpusa, intervened from X to stop that conspiracy and say that “the fact that there was no way out is probably another miracle, and I want people to know.”
Kolver quoted the surgeon who treated Kirk at the hospital, who said the bullet “should have crossed” the victim’s body. “I have seen wounds of this caliber many times and always go through everything. This would have dejected one or two alces.” “I should have pierced it without more. Probably, I would also have killed those who were behind him,” Kolver added.
Another conspiracy that circulates suspicion and especially the dialogue made by the authorities among the alleged murderer, Tyler Robinson, and his partner, the trans person he lived with. For Steve Bannon, the father of all Maga referents, that “invented” exchange seems “written by a screenwriter, and a bad one, also.” There are also those who consider it the work of artificial intelligence.
