Video above: George Zinn is detained moments after the shooting of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University.
New details are emerging surrounding the man who was initially detained for the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
In the moments after the shooting, graphic video of Kirk being shot quickly spread across the internet, as did a video of law enforcement officials detaining a man originally thought to be the shooter. That man was later identified as 71-year-old George Zinn.
The actual suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was arrested two days after the shooting and was charged with seven crimes on Tuesday morning, including aggravated murder, obstruction of justice and witness tampering. Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty.
A Salt Lake Tribune article published days after the shooting called Zinn an “occasionally ubiquitous activist” known for “showing up — and occasionally disrupting or being arrested at — events ranging from political speeches to the Sundance Film Festival to various protests.”
According to the same article, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sam Gill stated that his office had prosecuted Zinn “numerous times” and that he has a criminal history dating back to the 1980s.
“Often, Gill said, Zinn was arrested on suspicion of trespassing. He said Zinn was politically conservative, leaning libertarian, and would ‘give [him] a hard time for being a Dem’,” the article reads. “Zinn had a curiosity about politics and at ‘almost every political event you can think of, there was always George somewhere in the background, listening.’”
“He’s a person who can be odd, and has those kinds of sometimes odd behavior challenges,” Gill told the outlet. “But by and large, he’s more of a gadfly than anything else.”
Zinn, according to Utah authorities, was at the Sept. 10 event when the shooting occurred and was detained after he yelled that he was the shooter. He was uncooperative with officers at first before beginning to have a medical issue that required him to be taken to a hospital.
While at the hospital, an FBI agent was joined by an agent from the Utah State Bureau of Investigation to interview Zinn on the matter, and he agreed to answer questions.
“Zinn admitted that he had yelled that he was the shooter to allow the actual suspect to flee and to hinder law enforcement,” the Utah County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “During the interview, the agents asked to look at Zinn’s phone and Zinn agreed to let them.”
Upon agreeing, Zinn also told the agents he used his phone to “view and abuse” child sexual abuse material, adding that such images may have been on his phone.
“Those agents did see several images on the phone of prepubescent girls scantily dressed,” the sheriff’s office said.
Eventually, the agents were asked to leave to help with the manhunt for the actual perpetrator of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Thus, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit assumed the investigation into the child sex abuse material.
When Special Victims Unit investigators executed a search warrant on Monday, they found “over 20 images of children ranging from five to 12 years old in various stages of undress and sexual posing.”
Additionally, there were several “very graphic text threads” in which Zinn sent the images to others.
“Zinn admitted to USCO SVU investigators that he gets sexual gratification from viewing and sharing the child sex abuse material images with others, and that his preferred victim age is five to 12 years old,” authorities said.
As of Tuesday, Zinn is being held at the Utah County Jail for second-degree felony obstruction of justice and four counts of second-degree felony sexual exploitation of a minor. The investigation into his child porn case is ongoing.
According to law enforcement, there is no concrete information that the 71-year-old “actually colluded” with the suspected real shooter, Tyler Robinson.
“Zinn was in attendance and intentionally yelled he was the shooter and by doing so, obstructed law enforcement from focusing on the actual shooter,” police concluded.
Video below: Authorities announce charges against Tyler Robinson, the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s killing, on Tuesday morning.
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