Bowling Green State University’s (BGSU) chapter of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) held a vigil to honor the late Charlie Kirk.

The event was held to honor the late founder of TPUSA at the Carillon Clock Tower on Monday evening. Around 200 to 300 students and community members showed up between 8 and 9 p.m.

Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University during his TPUSA event, “The American Comeback Tour” on Sept. 10.

“His life was tragically cut short this past Wednesday and there’s no room for violence like that in America,” Levi Trausch, secretary of TPUSA, said. “Coming out here, it’s just a simple way we can honor him and just espouse some of the values that Charlie stood for.”

At the event, the audience listened to TPUSA executives give speeches about Kirk and were later allowed to go honor Kirk at a memorial set up by TPUSA featuring a picture of Kirk, flowers and candles.

“What a lot of people came to do here, was especially to take time to reflect, say some prayers for him, for his family, for our country and just take time to remember him,” Trausch said.

With the sudden death, Trausch remains hopeful for the future of the organization.

“It’s definitely different without Charlie. He was the face of TPUSA,” Trausch said. “We’ll see how it evolves in the near future, with his wife, who is going to make sure it continues on and I have high hopes for the organization.”

With the large political gathering, there was a BGSU Police presence at the event. Chief Michael Campbell said it’s to maintain safety on campus..

“BGSU Police routinely places officers at various events or gatherings across the learning community to maintain visibility and provide safety and security support, said Campbell. “You will find officers at many events or gatherings across campus throughout the year.”

TPUSA is a nonprofit group founded by Kirk in 2012 that promotes The Constitution, capitalism, conservative beliefs and Christianity.

“Since its founding, Turning Point USA has embarked on a mission to build the most organized, active and powerful conservative grassroots activist network on high school and college campuses across the country,” as said on their website.

Lydia Leurck, a junior marketing major is not a current member of TPUSA, but after the recent death she has plans to join. She was one of the many students who attended the vigil.

“This is an event that literally broke my heart less than a week ago. I feel like joining this community to not only recognize a great life, but a great person who reflected his faith and also his conservative values and we don’t want his death to be for nothing,” Leurck said.

An anonymous non-traditional business student went because the student’s sons, also enrolled at BGSU, looked up to Kirk.

“He’s one of the only people who’s ever shown this generation of kids that you can disagree with people in public discourse and still get along. You can do it reasonably without arguing and making it ugly, and I respected that,” the student said.

Many students were unaware of the vigil and showed up wondering why the crowd of people had gathered. One student said she finds it distasteful that many are honoring his death but not others.

“I think instead of honoring a man who was problematic and harmed many minority communities, we should highlight the children who are being killed by gun violence,” said Sophia Gray, a freshman pre-pharmacy student. “The same day Charlie Kirk died, two children died at school. They were just trying to learn.”

She adds that we should end gun violence as a whole and highlight the “real victims.”

“I don’t think Charlie should have been shot for his opinion. I don’t think anyone should be shot in this world. I think we should end gun violence,” Gray said. ”But there’s a difference between inciting violence and just trying to get an education. So I think we should highlight the real victims of gun violence.”

Another anonymous student adds that Charlie Kirk said many have to be sacrificed in order to have the Second Amendment.

“I think it’s really wrong to have an entire vigil at a school campus for someone who supported gun rights and specifically said that gun violence was a sacrifice that we had to make in order to keep our Second Amendment right,” said the student.

The quote this student is referencing is from Kirk in 2023, stating, “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other god-given rights.”

This student adds that due to his past opinions, it’s not right that he’s being celebrated.

“Now we’re having a vigil for him when he was racist, transphobic, homophobic, all of these awful things and now we’re celebrating his death because I guess dying excludes you from everything you did in life,” they said.

While many BGSU students are opposed on the matter, Trausch preaches forgiveness during this time.

“One thing that Charlie was big on, the biggest thing was his faith in God and so one thing he always talked about was forgiveness… While something like this is horrible and very hard to forgive, Charlie would be the first person to forgive him [the shooter] for what he did and I think that’s something we all need to remember and take to heart,” Trausch said.