Fresno church holds vigil for Charlie Kirk after fatal shooting in Utah

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Dozens gathered Sunday nighttime astatine New Covenant Community Church successful northeast Fresno to grant blimpish activistic Charlie Kirk, who was changeable and killed past week during an lawsuit astatine Utah Valley University.

The vigil, led by Cornerstone Church Senior Pastor Jim Franklin, focused connected supplication and unity. Franklin, who met Kirk during a 2022 sojourn to Fresno, described him arsenic a passionate antheral of faith.

"I deliberation erstwhile you spot calamity similar this, particularly the horrific images that we saw of 1 infinitesimal speaking to a crowd-expressing his feelings and beliefs, and the adjacent infinitesimal struck down, that is thing much than a large shock," Franklin said.

He added that Kirk's attack was often misunderstood.

"In each the times that I've heard him speaking personally and that I've watched him, I've ne'er seen him beryllium hateful," Franklin said. "Sadly, galore times we deliberation erstwhile idiosyncratic disagrees with us, that indispensable mean they hatred us. We arsenic a nine person got to get supra that."

In anticipation of imaginable protests, Fresno constabulary were connected manus to guarantee the lawsuit remained peaceful.

Organizers said the gathering was meant to bespeak connected Kirk's beingness and influence, not politics.

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