At 12:21 p.m. on Sept. 10, a teenage gunman opened fire at Evergreen High School, less than 30 miles away from the University of Denver campus.
Minutes later, at 12:23 p.m., right-wing activist and Turning Point USA founder, Charlie Kirk, was shot and killed at an event held at Utah Valley University.
Over a week later, four DU students, among many, are still grappling with the events of Sept. 10.
Lexi Levin
Lexi Levin is a fourth-year at DU studying sociology and pursuing a master’s degree in elementary education. She found out that Charlie Kirk had been shot via a text from her brother and close friend that afternoon. She learned of the school shooting at Evergreen High School soon after.
As an aspiring educator, the attacks brought up Levin’s fear of experiencing a school shooting.
“To think that on my Amazon wishlist are bulletproof vests for kids is very concerning,” she said. “I was just mortified about how much violence is happening with guns.”
Something that stood out to Levin on Sept. 10 was “the way there are different reactions to [Kirk] dying, and then the school shooting,” she said.
She found herself concerned for the students present at both shootings.
“Those kids that were at Charlie’s rally, they shouldn’t have experienced seeing someone die in front of them,” she said.
She said that she doesn’t see political violence or gun violence getting better in the near future, even though she wishes that she could firmly state that it was.
“I think there’s too much division,” Levin said. “Everyone’s looking at it with a different angle than the root issue of why? Why is this even happening?”
Yarizel Nava
Yarizel Nava is a first-year student majoring in psychology. Like Levin, she found out about Kirk’s assassination late in the afternoon on Sept. 10, and the Evergreen High School shooting a few hours after that.
Nava’s initial reaction to Kirk’s assassination was one of shock. After hearing about the events at Evergreen, she was worried for classmates and community members who may be affected.
“Since we go to DU and it’s pretty close, there’s probably people that know people that go there,” she said.
She expressed that “gun violence affects everyone, no matter what you think about it.” Nava felt more sympathy for the school shooting in Colorado, largely in part because Kirk’s beliefs did not align with her values and the Evergreen attack was closer to home.
Nava struggles not to be personally affected by gun violence, especially so close to DU.
“There’s no change for anyone,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who [or] what side you’re on.”
In the future, Nava hopes to see more legislation aimed at reducing gun violence. She believes that politicians on both sides of the spectrum must come together to solve the issue, because “no one is really excluded from it,” she said.
“I just really hope that because it happened on the same day, people can see more humanity in other people,” Nava said.
Johnny Beinner
Johnny Beinner is a fourth-year marketing and data analytics student. Beinner first heard about Kirk’s assassination when a friend sent him a graphic video of the attack 10 minutes after shots rang out.
“I thought it was A.I. — I thought it was my buddy messing with me,” Beinner said. “I didn’t believe it for like an hour after he told me.”
That afternoon, Beinner heard other students talking about the shooting during and in between his classes.
“People were in disbelief,” he said.
He heard about the Evergreen High School shooting in a class when his professor got an alert on their phone.
“It’s a sad thing to say, but I definitely did not feel too shocked,” Beinner said. “These things do happen.”
While Beinner isn’t unaffected, the events of Sept. 10 still feel far away since he lacked a personal connection to either shooting.
Beinner acknowledged that gun violence is extremely prevalent in the United States, but he “can’t see a world in which there is an easily dealt out answer to a question that is so, so broad,” he said.
Although political polarization in the United States seems to be at an all-time high, Beinner has hope.
“People come from different walks of life, so putting [empathy] first and foremost, and understanding that and saying ‘we’re very different, but I could still have this conversation without losing all sides of who I am,’ I think that would be nice to see going forward,” Beinner said.
Nick Zeff
Nick Zeff is a fourth-year student studying anthropology. He learned about both shootings on a group chat with his friends from home. While Zeff later saw news about Charlie Kirk on X, he had to seek out information about the Evergreen High School shooting.
He said the two shootings being on the same day didn’t affect how he felt about either one of them, but the way in which they were covered in the news did.
“Charlie Kirk made national news almost immediately, whereas the school shooting didn’t really hit the news for a while,” Zeff said.
Zeff felt conflicted about the way two different narratives took hold of the news cycle that day.
Zeff is concerned about how political violence may cause further conflict amongst Americans.
“You instantly saw the president come out and say that this was an attack by the left on the right, which immediately just sparks more divisiveness that obviously we don’t need,” he said.
Zeff hopes that the shootings will prompt gun legislation reform, whatever that looks like.
