Featured Image Credit: Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images
Topics: Charlie Kirk, Crime, Explained, Mental Health, Politics, Science, US News, Social Media
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: Charlie Kirk, Crime, Explained, Mental Health, Politics, Science, US News, Social Media
It's been nearly a full week now since far-right activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
Last Wednesday (10 September), the 31-year-old Turning Point USA founder, famous for his extremely polarising and controversial political views, was allegedly shot by 22-year-old Tyler Robinson while he spoke to a crowd at Utah Valley University in Orem.
Kirk was seated under a white gazebo and was answering a question when a single shot struck him in the neck, with over 3,000 people witnessing the incident.
A neuropsychologist, Derek Van Schaik, has since analysed the footage of the incident, speaking about whether Kirk would have 'had time to process' what had just happened to him in the moment or not.
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"When someone suffers a catastrophic wound to the neck that destroys a carotid artery and jugular vein, the mind only has a fleeting window to possibly register what happened," Van Schaik explained in a YouTube video posted to the social media platform on Sunday (14 September).
The expert continued: "However, in Charlie's case, and after analysing the footage with a digital timer, he was conscious for no more than four-tenths of a second after impact.
"Far too fast for his brain to even register what had happened to him."
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According to Van Schaik, Kirk would have felt 'no panic, no dread, no realisation that he was about to die'.
"Only an abrupt blackout," he went on, before explaining: "It was neurologically impossible for him to psychologically realise anything was wrong at all."
Van Schaik went on to state that while pain in the neck can register in just '100 milliseconds', Kirk lost consciousness so quickly that his brain never had the chance to turn that raw signal into a perception of pain.
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"He absolutely did not know he was shot," the neuroscientist concluded, before adding that Kirk’s death was 'essentially instant'.
During a press conference last week, it was revealed that Robinson's bullet casings had several messages written on them.
One of which read: "Notices bulges. OwO. What’s this?"
This appears to be a reference to a 'copypasta' - a piece of text that is repeated over and over again, often to troll people on social media.
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Another casing had an up, right and three down arrows.
"The three down arrows alone could be a common symbol used to represent the anti-fascist movement. As a whole, the sequence of arrows could reference a gaming cheat code - although this remains unclear, and authorities have not yet released images of the casings," per the BBC.
There were also inscriptions on three unfired casings, which included: 'Hey fascist! Catch!', 'oh bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao' and 'if you read this you are gay lmao'.
According to the BBC, 'bella ciao' is in reference to an Italian song about the Italian resistance fighting against occupying troops from Nazi Germany.
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The latter bullet, again, appears to be a reference to online trolling humour.
The messages on the bullet seem to indicate that Robinson was well-versed in online culture and included references to the Antifa, or the anti-fascist, movement who oppose Trump's policies and far-right groups.
During the Q&A segment of the press conference, Cox was also asked about the messages on the bullets and what they mean.
"Well, I will leave that up to you to interpret what those engravings mean," he replied to one journalist's question, adding: "I think the clearest one that says 'catch fascists'. That's like catch a ball - 'catch this'. I think that speaks for itself."