COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — Hundreds of people gathered at McEuen Park for a candlelight vigil honoring conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed while attending an event at Utah Valley University. Kirk was 31 years old and a father of two.
The vigil was organized by Patrick Wolf, youth committeeman for the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee.
“I pray that I never have to again because of course the circumstances are tragic, but the amount of support from the community has been phenomenal,” Wolf said.
Wolf organized the vigil shortly after hearing the news of Kirk’s death.
“The moment you hear something like this — a tragedy — the first thing you start doing is praying,” Wolf said.
The vigil began as the sun went down. People prayed, cheered and sang together. Many people said they were still processing Kirk’s death.
Hannah Vermeer, a Whitworth student, attended the vigil.
“He had a family and obviously had a huge impact, but it’s just, like, more scary than anything else that like it happened on a college campus,” Vermeer said.
Madison Richardson also attended.
“My heart dropped. I was like this isn’t real,” Richardson said.
Michael Jensen reflected on Kirk’s character.
“I really felt like this was a person who was out looking to speak to people who probably hated him without ever knowing him, or at least disliked him or disagreed with him.” Jensen said. “And that man had a lot of courage being able to step out in front of people and even have that dialogue.”
Wolf emphasized the community’s response to the tragedy.
“What we see here is a community coming together to grieve together, to pray together and to unite together. And that’s kind of the main thing that we want to look at today together and say, look, as a nation, how do we come together? How do we take these tragedies and not let it define us,” Wolf said.
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