{"id":223459,"date":"2025-09-13T11:45:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T11:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223459\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T11:45:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T11:45:17","slug":"video-of-charlie-kirks-shooting-dominated-school-and-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223459\/","title":{"rendered":"Video of Charlie Kirk’s shooting dominated school and social media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some students watched the video<\/a> in the middle of class. Others pulled out their phones as they walked out of school and found themselves watching the videos over and over. Some teachers interrupted lessons to discuss the horrific news.<\/p>\n

Almost instantly after Charlie Kirk<\/a> was assassinated Wednesday at Utah Valley University, the news \u2014 captured on video in grisly detail \u2014 sent shockwaves through classrooms everywhere. Because no matter teens\u2019 political opinions, everyone knew Kirk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In high school classes in Spanish Fork, Utah, chatter spread fast Wednesday, as students learned of the shooting and began to wonder if Kirk would live or die. A cellphone ban meant many students didn\u2019t learn of Kirk\u2019s fate until the final bell \u2014 pushing tough conversations in class to the next day.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the end of the day, I was worn out,\u201d said English teacher Andrew Apsley. He discussed the shooting with each of his four classes Thursday at Landmark High School, about 15 miles south of UVU.<\/p>\n

In the current political climate and with new cellphone bans<\/a>, schools have tried to push social media and controversial topics<\/a> to the sidelines, saying classes should focus on basic academics. Kirk\u2019s shooting upended all that.<\/p>\n

Graphic footage of Kirk\u2019s shooting on the Utah college campus was available almost immediately online<\/a>, captured by cellphones from several angles. The videos, in slow motion and real-time speed, show a direct view of Kirk being shot, his body recoiling and blood gushing from his neck. The videos were easy to find on X, TikTok and Instagram.<\/p>\n

Many teens say they feel traumatized by what they saw. They couldn\u2019t escape the videos popping up on their social media feeds or being passed to them by friends and classmates. Some teens posted warnings that urged people not to click on the Kirk videos, saying they wished the visuals had come with trigger warnings.<\/p>\n

Apsley\u2019s 19-year-old child received a gruesome video of Kirk\u2019s death in a message from a friend. His child has autism and has difficulty processing emotions, so the video was \u201cpretty traumatic,\u201d Apsley said. That incident became a teaching moment for Apsley\u2019s students. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know we want to be first. I know we want to be the one to share the information that other people rely on,\u201d Apsley recalled telling his classes. \u201cBut at the same time, not everyone is well-equipped<\/a> to handle something as graphic and violent as that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students tuned in everywhere, highlighting the global reality of social media.<\/p>\n

In Canada, Aidan Groves was in a college writing class when he saw a headline on Reddit that Kirk had been shot. He had not shared Kirk\u2019s political views, yet \u201cmy heart sank, and I was immediately on edge,\u201d said Groves, a student at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary. He quickly swiped through comments, feeling overcome by horror and dread. Even so, he left his classroom to watch the video.<\/p>\n

Groves, 19, grew up watching his dad play video games with violent imagery, but he was struck by the video\u2019s immediacy and the crowd\u2019s frantic reaction. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen anybody die, and immediately everybody in this crowd had just witnessed that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

When Groves returned to class 10 minutes later, everyone was distracted by the news of the shooting. Students passed around their phones. Some of his classmates expressed shock. Others who weren\u2019t fond of Kirk\u2019s views cracked jokes.<\/p>\n

Through it all, the professor carried on with his lesson.<\/p>\n

Whether students admired Kirk or not, teenagers across the world knew him from his social media presence. A right-wing activist and close ally of President Donald Trump, Kirk\u2019s savvy use of social videos, capturing his pithy responses to questions from liberals, raised his profile at speaking events on college campuses<\/a> and online, especially among young men.<\/p>\n

San Francisco teen Richie Trovao didn\u2019t agree with all of Kirk\u2019s ideas, but admired how the activist \u201creally stood on his beliefs.\u201d Trovao, 17, had thought about getting politically involved himself, but the assassination has given him second thoughts. He worries that speaking his mind could put him at risk.<\/p>\n

The high school senior was on Discord when a friend messaged that Kirk had been shot. Trovao didn\u2019t believe it at first, so he went to X to confirm, and a video of Kirk\u2019s death autoplayed. His stomach turned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought I would see something like that happen to someone who\u2019s just basically an influencer,\u201d Trovao said. Especially shocking: Some social media comments seemed to celebrate Kirk\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Reaction to the video has highlighted the political divide and polarization that exists among American youth, said Connecticut high school senior Prakhar Vatsa. That was the main topic of discussion among classmates in his AP Government class after Kirk\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Raised in an era of easy access to violent imagery, Vatsa, 17, said he wasn\u2019t too affected when he saw the video while scrolling social media, because he isn\u2019t too sensitive to gore.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bit traumatizing, but I\u2019ve seen worse,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press\u2019 education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list<\/a> of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some students watched the video in the middle of class. Others pulled out their phones as they walked…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":223460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[121248,121249,5643,119587,45326,11029,19719,16720,2738,69,407,57,2055,50,80,121250,3060,3981,358,5028,61,67,132,68,436,424,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-223459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-aidan-groves","10":"tag-andrew-apsley","11":"tag-arizona","12":"tag-assassination-of-charlie-kirk","13":"tag-assassinations","14":"tag-az-state-wire","15":"tag-charlie-kirk","16":"tag-colleges-and-universities","17":"tag-connecticut","18":"tag-donald-trump","19":"tag-education","20":"tag-general-news","21":"tag-government-and-politics","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-richie-trovao","25":"tag-schools","26":"tag-teens","27":"tag-texas","28":"tag-tx-state-wire","29":"tag-u-s-news","30":"tag-united-states","31":"tag-unitedstates","32":"tag-us","33":"tag-ut-state-wire","34":"tag-utah","35":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115196823145764130","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}