The lawn of Boston Common turned into a sea of red hats and memorial signs on Thursday as more than a thousand people gathered at the foot of the Massachusetts State House to honor conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the co-founder and CEO of Turning Point USA. The vigil, organized by Brian Foley, a 27-year-old former Republican candidate for Boston City Council, and members of Suffolk University’s Turning Point chapter, memorialized Kirk, who was assassinated last week, with candlelight and prayers.
On Sept. 10, 31-year-old Kirk was shot while debating college students at a speaking event at Utah Valley University for his American Comeback Tour. While standing under a banner that read “Prove Me Wrong,” Kirk was gunned down from 200 yards away by an assassin the FBI has since identified as 22-year-old Utah-native Tyler Robinson. Robinson has been charged with seven charges, including aggravated murder, and will be facing the death penalty.
As the sun went down, the crowd gathered around the Robert Gould Shaw & 54th Regiment Memorial in the shadow of the State House, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and chants ranging from “Hail Charlie” to “Hail Jesus” as candles were distributed.
“I’m just so grateful for Americans like you and me who are willing to die like Charlie Kirk did,” one speaker told the crowd. “He took the bullet for all of us, but we will not let his life be in vain.”
The event on Boston Common drew crowds from both sides of the aisle. In the ensuing week, employees in institutions from education to late-night entertainment have been disciplined, with encouragement from members of the Trump administration, for allegedly mocking the assassination in moves that underscore the deep political divisions surrounding Kirk’s death.
A few dozen counterprotesters clad in keffiyehs and black face coverings congregated at the foot of the hill, where a guard fence put up by Boston police prevented them from entering the vigil area. Attendees sang songs like “God Bless the USA,” “Amazing Grace,” and other Christian hymns to drown out the sound of counterprotesters. Two counterprotesters were arrested by BPD during the course of the event.
Before the vigil formally commenced, Joseph Antuan Castro Del Rio, a counterprotester from Watertown, appeared at the top of the steps with a large speaker, where he began denouncing Kirk as a white nationalist.
Foley said the event was meant to unite people across the ideological spectrum to condemn political violence, and that he wasn’t going to let the counterprotesters bother him, instructing the crowd not to engage with them. If counter protest efforts continued, Foley said, organizers would let the police handle it by removing agitators.
“We’re letting him speak, we’re not engaging. He has every right. This is the whole point of today. Come speak your mind. It’s what Charlie [Kirk] would want,” Foley said. “Let him scream his heart out.”
Del Rio was quickly surrounded by Kirk supporters with flags and signs and was escorted out of the event perimeter by a half dozen Boston Police officers shortly after the vigil began. He was later arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for continuing to use his speaker, according to BPD’s incident report.
In the wake of Kirk’s death, some on the left have accused media outlets of sanitizing his legacy and ignoring his controversial stances on LGBTQ+ issues, gender, the separation of church and state, and civil rights, among others.
“We are not going to mourn a white nationalist, someone who said that we should roll back civil rights … who said Black people were better off when they were slaves … that every single person, immigrant, and the sons of immigrants born here should go back to their country,” Del Rio told The Beacon shortly before his arrest. “That is who I’m opposing today.”
BPD made an additional arrest of a juvenile counterprotester roughly an hour and a half into the vigil. By that time, dozens of counterprotesters had gathered on the south side of a fence that cut Liberty Mall in half, where a crowd of hundreds of Kirk supporters stood with lighted candles.
In a police report obtained by The Beacon, officers said they observed the suspect yelling “fuck you fascist” to attendees within the permitted area of the event. As they escorted the protester outside the fence, police recounted that the individual punched a man in a MAGA hat on the right arm. The suspect was taken into custody and charged with assault and battery, disturbing the peace, and possession of a dangerous weapon after a search revealed a seven-inch hunting knife in his waistband.
Video shot by The Beacon shows what appears to be the suspect making contact with a vigil attendee in a red MAGA hat, after which a Boston Police officer grabs him from behind and drags him to the ground. Approximately five officers then joined in tackling the counterprotester, who shouted, “I didn’t do nothing,” to which an officer replied, “You touched him. That’s assault.”
The event, which was scheduled to last three hours, was abruptly cut short at 9 p.m. as BPD special operations called Foley to recommend ending the event over safety concerns, Boston.com reported.
“I’m always willing to find the middle ground,” Foley said. “That’s what Charlie [Kirk] taught me, is [to] find the middle ground… I think I’m doing that really good, because I got the left and the right coming up to me and saying, ‘Thank you for bringing us together.’”
Anthony Cutler, President of TPUSA at Suffolk University, said he has seen people condemn Kirk’s killing on the left and right.
“Right after the assassination, it was a lot of grief [around Turning Point] and a lot of, how do we get through this?” Cutler said. “Hopefully, this is a moment for people to realize that’s not how we settle disagreements.”
“We’re here to unite people, to bring people together, which is Charlie’s mission from the start,” he continued.
Ed Sheinbart, a Democrat who said he didn’t agree with most of what Kirk stood for, came to the vigil because of the need to end political violence. He said that it is a message that people of all nationalities, political beliefs, and faiths need to come together on.
“There is no place in America for gun violence because you don’t agree with someone’s political philosophy, just like there’s no place in America today at any time for gun violence,” Sheinbart said.
During speeches delivered later in the vigil, Foley tried to encourage a Democrat in the crowd to come to the microphone, but none appeared.
As the crowd of attendees swelled to over one thousand, they moved up the steps to the street in front of the State House, where they began to pray.
Brian Hurley of Dorchester said he came to the vigil not for political reasons, but just to pray.
“The one great thing about Charlie Kirk is if you disagreed with him, you came to the front of the line,” Hurley said. “I think that’s the noblest, [most] courageous thing any person could do.”
As attendees took up a megaphone to memorialize Kirk, some also voiced support for the Blue Lives Matter movement and evangelical Jesus movement, with many telling anecdotes of increased church attendance and baptisms in the week following the assassination.
“The scripture talks about a seed that when it dies it brings forth much fruit,” Pastor Chris DiGiacomo of Lifeline Baptist Church in Haverhill said. “I’m telling you right now, Charlie died, but you are the fruit of his death.” The comment elicited cheers from the crowd as the minister waved a Bible in his hand.
“To see something get put together like this by a conservative movement, I think it’s really needed here in Massachusetts,” Chester Tam, a former staffer for the Trump campaign in Massachusetts, said in an interview. He called Kirk’s assassination “something that you see in maybe third world countries,” not in America.
Some speakers also turned their attention and ire to counterprotesters and the Democratic Party.
“In the wake of this absolute tragedy happening, the enemy, the left, they want us to be divided … to be quiet, but I wouldn’t call 50,000 new chapter requests for Turning Point USA quiet,” Aidan Burns, vice president of TPUSA at Suffolk, said in a speech.
At Emerson, in the days following Kirk’s death, many students reacted with shock, condemning the political violence against him, despite fiercely disagreeing with his viewpoints. Emerson’s chapter of TPUSA was suspended and later disaffiliated from the college in 2022 following accusations of “anti-Asian bigotry.”
“[Charlie Kirk] was a terrible guy, I don’t agree with him on a lot of things, but I don’t agree with murder either,” said Yazhini Kannan, a freshman media arts production major.
“I don’t think gun violence is ever something that we should celebrate. But it’s just indicative of where our nation is going,” said Gabby Aquino, a senior marketing major. “We need people to put aside their differences and look at the bigger picture here.”
Blake Bailey, a junior marketing major, said he was disappointed in some celebratory reactions on social media immediately following the shooting among the Emerson community and tried to respond to those he found distasteful.
“To have it seem like you’re gloating about the death of another person is when we start to lose our humanity,” Bailey said.
