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Revealed: The political activist charged for distracting cops after 'saying HE shot Charlie Kirk'
UK Daily Mail ^ | 09/11/2025 | Will Potter

Posted on 09/11/2025 9:29:29 AM PDT by DFG

An elderly man arrested during the chaotic aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination has been identified as Utah political activist George Zinn.

The 71-year-old Utah resident was initially suspected of being the shooter as he was taken into custody moments after Kirk, 31, was shot in the neck at an event at Utah Valley College on Wednesday.

--snip--

Separate footage showed Zinn barking back at the crowd to 'shoot me', and a cop at the scene was heard saying 'he said he shot him, but I don't know', per the Salt Lake Tribune.

After it became clear that Zinn was not the gunman who killed Kirk, he was identified by Utah residents as a well-known political activist with a number of small-time arrests to his name.

He is known to frequently show up at protests and demonstrations in the state, and Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill told the Tribune that his office has prosecuted Zinn numerous times dating back to the 1980s.

--snip--

The District Attorney said he was aware of Zinn from years of political protests in Utah, as 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 odd behavior challenges,' Gill said, adding that 'by and large, he’s more of a gadfly than anything else'.

Gill said that his office had tried to get Zinn into mental health court for past misdemeanor charges, but he 'never really participated in that'.

Zinn's most serious arrest came in 2013, when he was charged with threatening to plant bombs at the finish line of the Salt Lake City Marathon.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: US: Utah
KEYWORDS: 2013; bombthreat; charliekirk; georgezinn; gill; marathon; orem; simgill; terroristleft; zinn
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1 posted on 09/11/2025 9:29:29 AM PDT by DFG
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To: DFG

Dude was a decoy.


2 posted on 09/11/2025 9:32:18 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: DFG

What do you know, George?


3 posted on 09/11/2025 9:32:45 AM PDT by Frank Drebin (And don't ever let me catch you guys in America!)
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To: DFG
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill told the Tribune that his office has prosecuted Zinn numerous times dating back to the 1980s.

You know ... he was ... kind of ... on the radar.

4 posted on 09/11/2025 9:33:50 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Democrats seek power through cheating and assassination. They have no ideas. They just want power.)
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To: circlecity

How about that.


5 posted on 09/11/2025 9:33:59 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: circlecity

Yep!
A decoy


6 posted on 09/11/2025 9:34:04 AM PDT by Zathras
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To: DFG

He sure got their attention while someone else could get away.


7 posted on 09/11/2025 9:34:49 AM PDT by montag813
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To: DFG

Lawfare the hell out of the pos.


8 posted on 09/11/2025 9:34:56 AM PDT by subterfuge (I'm a pure-blood!)
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To: DFG

Done hearing about “odd behavior” from the Leftist cult. It time for criminal conduct to be treated as such. This is not a “Free Speech” issue. This is domestic terrorism.


9 posted on 09/11/2025 9:35:35 AM PDT by MNJohnnie
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To: DFG

This guy can’t be allowed to go home. Because as others have commented, he well could have been a decoy.

At a minimum, arrest him for interfering with a police investigation. If that’s not a federal crime, find a federal crime.


10 posted on 09/11/2025 9:36:43 AM PDT by Leaning Right (It's morning in America. Again.)
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To: DFG
And in a bizarre link to the White House, Zinn was said to have slept in a cot in the hotel room of Ronald Reagan's former education secretary T.H. Bell when he showed up to the Republican National Convention in New Orleans in 1988 without a place to stay.

How does this 37 year-ago, hearsay event even remotely "link him to the White House?"

The Daily Mail is mostly garbage. I swear they are trying to contribute to the misdirection.

11 posted on 09/11/2025 9:37:04 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: Frank Drebin
Based on the Daily Mail article, Zinn may have just been a psycho and unrelated to the shooting. Possibly an old hippie.
12 posted on 09/11/2025 9:37:05 AM PDT by Wallace T.
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To: DFG

Enhanced interrogation...


13 posted on 09/11/2025 9:37:39 AM PDT by Blueflag (To not carry is to choose to be defenseless.)
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To: DFG

In retrospect, I think I used to be very unfair to Pinochet…


14 posted on 09/11/2025 9:38:46 AM PDT by DesertRhino (When men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go…)
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To: DFG

Is this goofball related to Howard Zinn in any way?


15 posted on 09/11/2025 9:39:22 AM PDT by IYAS9YAS (There are two kinds of people: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.)
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To: circlecity

Any relation to Howard Zinn, who wrote the neo-marxist “People’s History of the United States,” which is kind of a bible for American-hating liberals and socialists?


16 posted on 09/11/2025 9:39:36 AM PDT by PGR88
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He sure put on a good show.


17 posted on 09/11/2025 9:40:08 AM PDT by proust (All posts made under this handle are, for the intents and purposes of the author, considered satire.)
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To: circlecity

There was an older guy wearing a white 47 hat who mentioned him by name saying he wasn’t the shooter. Everything I’ve read about him is he’s a local nut with a like for politics but to the point he’s been banned or had restraining orders against him.


18 posted on 09/11/2025 9:40:50 AM PDT by Mean Daddy
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To: PGR88
The Daily Mail is mostly garbage. I swear they are trying to contribute to the misdirection.

Perhaps, but you'd be pleasantly surprised how pro Trump/anti left a good number of the reader comments are.

19 posted on 09/11/2025 9:40:51 AM PDT by Lizavetta
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To: montag813

Let me guess, covering for his grandson maybe?


20 posted on 09/11/2025 9:41:08 AM PDT by sevinufnine
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