Andrew Piskadlo was standing in the middle of a campus amphitheater Wednesday, waiting to debate Charlie Kirk about the Eighth Amendment, when a single deadly shot rang out.

“It was surprising, and no one really got down until the people in front of the stage did,” Piskadlo, 28, of Salt Lake City, said in a phone interview. “People got down in waves.”

He had been in line at a campus event at Utah Valley University in Orem, waiting to speak to and debate Kirk, as students typically do in the so-called “Prove Me Wrong” debates that Kirk, a right-wing activist, hosted.

Piskadlo, who estimated that he was about 80 feet away, recalled that Kirk had been responding to a question about transgender mass shooting suspects at some point before he was shot.

When the shot rang out, he said he dropped first but did not run. He said he did not see Kirk get shot. He estimated that the shooting occurred just minutes after the program began, shortly after noon.

Kirk was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was later declared dead.

Student Was 20 Feet From Kirk

Brandon Russon, a 24-year-old student at Ensign College in Salt Lake City, said he was near the front row of the crowd, about 20 feet from Kirk.

“I just saw Charlie kind of slump backwards, and I saw — it was very graphic — I saw a lot of blood. And then everybody around me just fell to the ground trying to take cover,” Russon said. He described a split second of confusion: Kirk was being asked about mass shootings at the time, and for a brief moment, Russon wondered whether the shooting was part of an act.

“That lasted only about a second before I realized it was something very serious going on,” he said. Fearing that more shots could be fired, Russon said he stayed crouched on the ground for about a minute as people screamed and ran around him.

He said that he texted his wife to tell her what was happening and that he loved her, then grabbed his friend, who was next to him, and ran for a nearby building.

Russon said he was still shaken up by the event and felt grateful to be alive.

He recalled that before it started, he had turned to his friend and said the courtyard venue was not ideal for someone who was a “divisive public figure.”

Shot Sounded Like a Firecracker

Piskadlo, who said he was active in Utah politics, said the setup of the amphitheater struck him as unsafe before the event. Despite a heavy security presence, he noticed “there were a lot of ledges, points where this could happen,” he said. “This seemed really preventable. I’m kind of angry at the organizers.”

When the shot rang out, he said he saw people starting to get down and take cover.

Isaac Davis, a junior at Utah Valley University, said the shot fired “wasn’t that loud.” He added, “It was definitely noticeable, but it sounded almost like a firecracker.” He said he believed the shooter was not in the crowd.

Davis said the scene devolved into “hysteria” after the shot, and he and several others were pushed indoors and into a classroom to hide. “I just didn’t want to be in the building while everything was going on so I ran out of it,” he said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Mark Walker and Anushka Patil/Kenny Holston

c.2025 The New York Times Company