A student’s view

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: As we mentioned, Charlie Kirk was a bold voice on college campuses around the country. He was speaking at The American Come Back Tour at Utah Valley University when he was shot and killed.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Hundreds of students showed up to hear Kirk. 20-year-old sophomore, Marko Vladic had a part-time job to get to, but he told me he made a point to walk past the stage where Kirk would be speaking.

MARKO VLADIC: Yes ma’am. I actually had a class today and walked right above his little lecture, I want to say a few minutes before it happened.

BROWN: So tell me what you remember? What did you see and hear?

VLADIC: Absolutely, yeah, so it was a normal day. Classic Wednesday. I went to my two classes, and in order to get to the Walmart, I have to walk across the whole campus. And there's this giant hallway right above where Mr. Kirk was giving his talk, and it's called the Hall of Flags, and it was full. There were so many people. The whole auditorium that he was sitting in was filled to the brim. It was packed. He was a very popular speaker coming into town, and everybody wanted to see him. And as I was walking through, I just kept seeing more people, more people come in, and I never saw any security. There was more of just you came in and found a spot to sit to listen so there was no, no nothing other than that.

BROWN: And you said you didn't see any security. Were you alarmed by that at all?

VLADIC: Not in the moment, not in the moment. I was more focused on just getting to work, and more, kind of like, surprised how many people showed up. I didn't feel like it would have been that full based off the other videos I had seen. But it was all young people, all very patriotic. They all had flags. This is a more of a Republican state of Utah, but the school itself is very liberal, and so I was more surprised to see how many people showed up from both sides. But in regards to a lack of security, I wasn't shocked in the moment, but being at work now, I'm realizing how, how many people you could just like fit in and not check and how easy it would have been to sneak anything in.

BROWN: Was it well publicized? I mean, people knew he was going to be there. People talking about it for a while?

VLADIC: Yeah, it was planned that he would come to our school, and I had definitely heard about it through one of my teachers. I just didn't realize who it was, because I'm not very good with remembering like celebrity names to faces. But I do remember Mr. Kirk and what he did, and I just had work I had to attend. I couldn't stay and watch.

It was just a normal day for me, and so my normal day is I am my last class at 11:50 and I clock into Walmart at 12 and I used to use that 10 minutes to rush across campus to come to work. And I thank God that I did.

I know based off of what happened and the way it happened, that this was not a whim of the moment, that this was a very skillful shooter. There's a video that's been released about him. There's like a outline of a body laying down on a rooftop that I actually walked past every day to get to my class. Which is more than maybe four or 500 feet away. And it was one shot, and it got him right away. I don't think that this was someone who was just, oh, I need to go and get this guy today. It was planned, organized. The killer got away. This was very, very planned out.

BROWN: Tell me about realizing that something had gone wrong.

VLADIC: Well, my sister actually was the first person to tell me that anything happened. I hadn't even heard a gunshot with from within the Walmart. But after I had figured out what had happened and seen videos, it was just very shocking that like such a national event, it was like, you know, you're just sitting in the Walmart, minding your own business, and then you hear some guy that you used to listen to all the time is gone, you know.

BROWN: And you did follow him.

VLADIC: I wasn't a super devout follower, but when his content would come onto my Instagram feed, I was definitely intrigued with what he had to say, and thought he was a very, excellent and well educated speaker who argued using facts and not just feelings.

BROWN: And I think you mentioned this, but I just want to go back to something, do you think the atmosphere was welcoming? You know, people wanted him to be there?

VLADIC: Absolutely. I mean, if you could have seen the amount of people, not only that were planning for a seat, but that were still piling in. People were coming into, like, parking in the Walmart parking lot, the whole school was absolutely slammed.

BROWN: What was it about him that you gravitated to and his message?

VLADIC: I feel like the way he would argue and would claim a point was very direct, and it skipped feelings and the sensitive emotions that people tried to kind of tiptoe around. I feel like he got to the point and was very refreshing to see someone who wasn't scared of what the internet would say. He obviously inspired a lot of people, a lot of young men, and even a lot of young women, to come out there and to listen to him.

BROWN: This is, some would say, a cultural tipping point. How has this affected you?

VLADIC: This will probably shut down a lot of things here. Everything's going to come to a grinding halt for school. Most definitely. Kids are going to be fighting between each other about if the shooting was right or wrong, as most people do. Everybody has something good or bad to say. I think for me personally, though, it just shows like what Christ talked about, I know that hard times are coming and they're coming fast, so there's a sense of shock, or also a sense of like, you know that this is gonna happen.

And another thing I want to say to all the Christians who are listening to this, we all obviously very upset that someone such a large advocator for Christians and Republicans alike, was taken from this world, but know that no matter how fast that killer runs, that God saw what happened, and we will all be equally judged, equally be judged on the final day. So instead of using the energy that we, that God has given us and the breath that God has given us to feel angry and feel like we deserve to kill him. Instead, live how Christ lived when he was killed, and realize that this just affirms what we've been taught and that we need to carry on living like Christ and living in an example, not in anger.

BROWN: Marko Vladic, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.

VLADIC: Thank you for having me on it really means a lot to me that I can help. Thank you for having me on.

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