Praying that Charlie’s Kirk’s shooter ‘not be one of us’ is false religion | Opinion

It was not long ago that Washington, D.C. was in shock over a three-week shooting spree in 2002 that left 10 dead when a 17-year-old shooter randomly fired from the trunk of a driven Chevrolet Caprice.

My thoughts brought me here after watching a press conference this morning on the arrest of a suspect in Wednesday killing of Charlie Kirk. More about that later.

The 2002 shootings crippled the D.C. area, as people stayed away from shopping or getting gasoline for fear they’d be the next target. People getting gasoline would often do so while ducking down or constantly moving to avoid becoming a target.

Tensions were heightened as law enforcement sought to locate the culprits and the nation tried to figure out how such a dastardly attack could go unsolved. These were pre-Twitter, pre-Instagram, pre-Facebook, pre-TikTok days.

That, however, did not stop people from speculating who the culprits were. Nearly two-thirds of Americans followed the news closely, making it the year’s top story, according to the Pew Research Center.

Police were originally looking for a white van rather than the 1990 Caprice early in their investigation. When Salvadorans in a white van were stopped and questioned, the immigrant community collectively shrugged and hoped the police stopped the wrong people.

A colleague at the time breathed a sigh of relief when the Salvadoran men were crossed off as suspects. “Can you imagine what would have happened if they were the actual shooters?” she asked me.

Yes, I know Latinos already unfairly targeted because of our language, what we wear and the color of our skin. Having someone like us arrested for a major crime only adds fuel to the anti-immigrant bonfire.

We cringe when a Latino politician gets caught in an extramarital affair, siphons public money or gets arrested for a DUI. Their raps paint us all as guilty of the same acts.

Yes, Latinos constantly pray that a mass shooter, a bank robber or a drug dealer is not one of us. Our cross to bear because of our ethnicity is already too heavy to carry without the added accusation that we’re just like other criminals.

Utah governor’s bad messaging

That brings me to the assassination of Kirk in Utah earlier this week. Social media speculated the culprit was trans, or Democrat or not a Utahn.

Tyler Robinson, 22, was arrested Thursday night by authorities 250 miles away from the Utah Valley University campus where Kirk was fatally shot during Sept. 10 speaking engagement. Robinson is not registered with any political party.

I had no plans to opine about Kirk’s death or its subsequent discussions (there are scores of stories and opinion pieces already, and much more will be offered) until Friday morning when I saw Utah Gov. Spencer Cox address the political assassination during a press conference.

The Republican governor was correct in asking for a stop to political violence, that this “is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on the American experience. It is an attack on our ideas.”

But then, Cox said words that chilled me.

“And for 33 hours, I was praying that if this had to happen here that it wouldn’t be one of us – that somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country,” said Cox. “Sadly, that prayer was not answered the way I hoped for just because I thought it would make it easier on us if we could just say, ‘Hey, we don’t do that here, Utah is a special place.”

Wouldn’t. Be. One. Of. Us.

Note: Utah is almost 89% white.

Was Cox praying the culprit would turn out to be a person of color? An immigrant? Why did he have to pray about the identity of the shooter? Did he want to pin the crime on a person of color?

Earlier in the press conference, Cox warned against rage and the culture of division. He called for an end to political violence. Then he messed up with the content of his prayer.

Wanting to blame an out-of-stater or a foreigner is not the America I grew up in. Utah’s governor should not have brought up the subject of his prayers. We should condemn all killers, not just those who don’t look us.

Thank God this governor’s prayers weren’t answered.

This story was originally published September 12, 2025 at 2:02 PM.