The first time businessman Gary Rabine met Charlie Kirk, the then-18-year-old conservative activist showed up for a fundraiser at a far northwest suburban golf club to network and expand what seemed at the time to Rabine like a “little cause.”
Suspect in Charlie Kirk killing has been captured, President Donald Trump says
Rabine, who had founded a Schaumburg-based paving company and later went on to run an unsuccessful Republican primary campaign for governor in 2022, told the Tribune he had reservations but agreed to sit down for a quick chat with Kirk about four hours later, which was well past midnight.
“He explained to me and my late wife about his goals and his dreams,” Rabine said. “He said, ‘I want to build an organization that educates kids everywhere, on college campuses all over America, on why God is great and why America is great.’ He really hooked me on that.”
That “little cause,” of course, was Turning Point USA, Kirk’s organization that grew to national prominence with the help of financial backers like Rabine. On Wednesday, Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative firebrand and close ally of President Donald Trump, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs, was shot and killed at a Utah college in what the state’s governor called a political assassination. A bipartisan outcry against political violence followed.
Law enforcement officials said Thursday that the killer, who “appears to be of college age,” jumped off a roof and fled after firing the fatal shot. While authorities continued their search for the shooter, those who knew Kirk personally in the Chicago area spent the day reflecting on his life. His local mourners included college students influenced by his brand of brazen Christian conservatism and incendiary comments, which often incorporated racist, misogynistic and homophobic language.
“Charlie inspired millions of people to think a little differently,” Rabine said. “I’m telling you, I saw so many smart people that had differing opinions to Charlie, and yet, boy, Charlie was respectful and joyful.”
Kirk’s upbringing, influences in Chicago suburbs
Kirk grew up in Prospect Heights, where he played high school basketball and organized a protest against an increase in the cost of cafeteria cookies. When the Tribune profiled him in 2018, he described his parents as Republicans but not particularly ardent ones. His father worked as an architect, and his mother worked as a mental health counselor.
On Thursday morning, a copy of The Wall Street Journal lay at the end of the long driveway at his parents’ house, untouched. If it was the Sept. 11 edition, the news of their son’s death was on the front page, hand-delivered to their home, which blends in on the cul-de-sac.
No one answered the door at the house, but some neighbors offered words of sympathy toward Kirk and his family. One neighbor said she was “heartbroken” by the death and another said he was “grieving for his parents.”
“Despite our political differences, there is no place for this type of hatred or violence,” said Jim Tinaglia, the mayor of Arlington Heights, the nearby suburb where Kirk was born. “We must always remember that we have more in common with one another than what separates us.”
What to know about the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Point USA
Kirk told the Tribune his political awakening began in middle school after a teacher badmouthed then-President George W. Bush. He read books by economist Milton Friedman to understand the teacher’s supposed animosity, and became convinced that Republicans offered the most sensible philosophy for an ambitious young person.
He recounted times he sparred with teachers at Wheeling High School over what he perceived to be their Marxist viewpoints. (His classmates remember these encounters differently.) At the school, he also led a boycott after Wheeling’s cafeteria raised the cost of a cookie from a quarter to 50 cents.
“Some of Kirk’s former classmates said the episode was more of a prank than serious political action, but it offered early evidence of the traits that would turn Kirk into a national phenomenon,” the Tribune profile said. “A talent for organizing his peers. A facility with social media. And a penchant for making statements so hyperbolic you might wonder if he’s serious.”
High School District 214 described Kirk, a 2012 graduate, in a statement as a “a student who brought energy, confidence, and passion to the classroom and beyond.” The district said as a teenager, Kirk was known for “his drive” and “his ability to inspire spirited conversation among his peers.”
“He cared deeply about issues that mattered to him, whether organizing classmates in response to changes at school or writing about the world around him,” the statement said.
Two days after graduating from Wheeling, Kirk started Turning Point along with William Montgomery, a tea party activist, to proselytize on college campuses for low taxes and limited government. It was not an immediate success.
But Kirk’s zeal for confronting liberals in academia eventually won over an influential set of conservative financiers, including Rabine, who said he was frustrated by the political opinions his children developed in college. He and his wife made a donation and introduced Kirk to other like-minded friends in the Chicago area, and the organization grew, he said.
“Dad, this entrepreneurial thing isn’t that big of a deal, and the government is more important than small business,” Rabine recalled his children saying. “Just crazy things we heard. It bothered me a lot, and I really believe that this smart young man could grow an organization and educate kids on college campuses.”
Another early financial supporter was former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, whose family foundation made contributions to Turning Point in 2014 and 2015 totaling $150,000.
Rabine said he last spoke with Kirk on Sunday afternoon as Kirk was leaving Japan. He said Kirk was excited to come home to his wife and two kids. Rabine learned that Kirk was shot while at his office in Schaumburg, and said he spent the day praying.
“Many people say, ‘OK, now it’s going to end.’ Well, it’s not ending,” he said. “I’m very confident that the dreamers and the entrepreneurs, the investors and these young kids that are so engaged with this organization, are going to not just keep his legacy alive, but grow it much stronger than it might have otherwise.”
‘A symbol’ for conservatives at area colleges
Indeed, at area colleges Kirk’s most ardent supporters say he will be missed, with some describing him as a “martyr.” Even students who don’t agree with his politics said they were saddened by his assassination. Kirk is probably best known for his viral debates with college students, but he also became a fixture on cable TV, leaning into the culture wars and praising Trump.
Tyler Shasteen, president of the University of Chicago’s Turning Point USA chapter, said Kirk also made a point to ask students about their personal lives, after talking about politics and conservative activism. Shasteen said he and other college students joined Kirk in March 2023 for dinner at a local pizza restaurant when he was in town for a speaking engagement.
Shasteen said he believes Kirk’s killing will galvanize young conservatives. More than 80 students signed up for U. of C.’s Turning Point USA chapter last year, and he predicted those numbers will grow. Shasteen also serves as the Republican committeeman of the 5th Ward, which stretches over parts of campus.
“Charlie stood as a symbol for many of us who are people of faith, who are people who believe in free speech and liberty,” Shasteen said. “It was certainly a very heavy moment for me.”
Turning Point USA has a network of more than 800 campus chapters nationwide, including more than a dozen at Illinois colleges and universities. In March 2023, the nonprofit’s chapter at the University of Illinois Chicago hosted Kirk and far-right commentator Candace Owens, sparking significant protests. More recently, Kirk spoke at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in April as part of his American Comeback Tour.
Kirk’s political evolution from a free-market conservative to perhaps the most prominent voice of his generation on the religious right and a proponent of Christian nationalism mirrored the rightward shift of the Republican Party both in Illinois and nationally during the Trump era, said Ryan Burge, a professor at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis.
His rise was fueled in large part by his social media savvy and his “willingness to say the offensive thing, the impolite thing,” Burge said.
Kirk’s death also showed the rising threat of political violence. Trump survived assassination attempts, including at a 2024 campaign rally, while a Democratic state lawmaker in Minnesota was fatally shot along with her husband earlier this summer. In the wake of Kirk’s killing, Burge said, it’s important to remember that “words aren’t violence.”
“That to me needs to be a universal truth,” he said. “Words aren’t violence.”
For all Kirk’s faults, “at least he tried to engage people with his ideas,” Burge said. “And guess what? He was very effective at it, maybe one of the most effective of his generation, and if that’s what gets you killed in America, then the American experiment’s a failure.”
Nick Vaccaro, a freshman at Harper College, a community college in Palatine that Kirk briefly attended, said he didn’t know much about Kirk but was shocked Wednesday after hearing that he’d died.
“I don’t understand how, no matter what somebody’s beliefs or opinions are, how you want to kill them because you don’t like them or believe in what they believe,” Vaccaro said. “It’s just wrong.”
Sophomore Karina De La Rosa said she feels sad for Kirk’s wife and children and said no one deserves to die the way he did. But she said she does understand how some could feel a bit of relief that he will no longer spread “so much misinformation and hatred.”
“I hear a lot of people saying, like, ‘He could have had better security,’ or this or that or whatever, but the only thing that could have saved him would have been stricter gun laws,” De La Rosa said.
Political influence, condolences in Illinois
In deep blue Illinois, Kirk’s actual political influence was limited, though he made occasional appearances with candidates and politicians in the state and on its college campuses. Vice President Mike Pence even attended Turning Point’s Midwest conference in 2019, praising the group’s members as “young patriots.”
There was an outpouring of condolences from across the political spectrum in Illinois on Wednesday when news of Kirk’s death broke.
Illinois House Republican leader Tony McCombie issued a statement saying it was “deeply disturbing that hatred has escalated to the point where lives are being stolen.”
“That this happened while he was speaking on political violence at a university, a place that should be dedicated to free speech and the open exchange of ideas, makes it even more tragic,” she said.
Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker also condemned the shooting, saying in a statement posted to social media that “no one in this country should have to fear gun violence, whether they’re in class in high school or attending an event on a college campus.”
But responses to his death also fueled partisan feuding, a sign of both the divisive nature of Kirk’s public persona and the current level of rancor in politics.
Addressing reporters at an unrelated news conference Wednesday afternoon before Kirk’s death was confirmed, Pritzker said it wasn’t clear whether it was an act of “political violence” because the identity and motives of the shooter weren’t known.
Nevertheless, he sought to place the shooting in the broader context of rising political violence, including the June shootings of two Minnesota Democratic state lawmakers and their spouses, along with the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“It’s got to stop,” Pritzker said. “I think there are people who are fomenting it. I think the president’s rhetoric often foments it.”
Those comments drew a rebuke from the Illinois Republican Party, which issued a statement saying Pritzker had “doubled down on the violent political rhetoric the left is known for.”
“JB Pritzker is a despicable human being for using this tragedy to take political shots and launch his campaign for president,” state GOP Chair Kathy Salvi said in a statement.
The Associated Press contributed.
