It wasn't until she saw the size of the crowd gathering at Utah Valley University that senior Hazel Kynaston understood the significance of who Charlie Kirk was. "We just used our lunch break that we had in between two classes to go down and kind of see this event," she said. She admitted she had never heard of him, he simply didn't cross her algorithm.But campus police estimate about 6,000 students had gathered on Sept.
10, 2025, to hear the conservative activist field questions from students in the open Q&A forum he had become famous for.Kynaston realised his presence was a big deal, and fought through the "pretty intense" crowd with her friend to get near the front. She had been in her spot for only a few moments when she watched Kirk's body seize up and collapse off his stool.
Authorities say a single shot from a high powered hunting rifle about 150 yards away struck Kirk."I didn't know a person could bleed like that," she said.Her voice shook as she described the stunned silence that lingered for a second before chaos and panic ensued. Kynaston, along with hundreds of other students who witnessed Kirk's death, are seeking help from the state to pay for mental health and trauma support."It was a moment that I can never get back," she said.
"You know, like what I witnessed and like the fear and the adrenaline and the inexplicable feeling of I'm next." Utah Office for Victims of Crime Director Chyleen Richey said in the days following the shooting, at least 500 witnesses approached her office seeking compensation for things like mental health counseling.So far, 173 have actually applied for those benefits. "What we have to determine is a zone of danger for our benefits," she explained. In other words, someone at the front of the crowd who saw everything that day might be entitled to different benefits than someone who was further back with an obstructed view.
In this case, after working with the FBI, the office determined the zone of danger to be th...