Bearded Man Seen Cheering After Charlie Kirk Shooting Claims He Was Chanting “USA” to Save Lives, Not Celebrate Violence
When tragedy strikes in a public space, confusion spreads faster than anything else. People see a blur of movements, half-hear shouts, and grab onto the closest thing that feels like an explanation. That’s exactly what happened at Utah Valley University after the shocking shooting of Charlie Kirk. Among the chaos, cameras captured a bearded man pumping his fists and shouting, and almost instantly, a narrative formed. To many online viewers, it looked like this man was cheering after someone had just been gunned down. It was a moment that sent anger spiraling across social media. But now, the man himself has stepped forward to explain—and what he says is very different from what millions of people believed.
The man, who identified himself only as David on the platform X, shared a two-minute video in which he tried to set the record straight. His curly hair, scruffy beard, and baseball cap matched the figure in the viral clips, and he did not deny being there in that crowd. What he did deny was celebrating the violence. Instead, David said he started chanting “USA, USA” in a desperate attempt to create a distraction. According to him, his thinking in that chaotic moment was simple: maybe if people turned their attention to a chant, it would take the focus away from the shooter and reduce panic. Maybe it would give frightened people a second to gather themselves. Maybe it could even help save lives.
Whether his explanation is convincing depends on who you ask. Some people online have expressed sympathy, saying that in moments of raw fear, no one reacts perfectly and any attempt to steer a crowd away from chaos should be given the benefit of the doubt. Others are more skeptical, pointing to the way his body language looked in the footage, his raised fist, his shouting face, and the way it resembled excitement rather than distraction. For critics, the excuse sounds too convenient, too neatly packaged after the fact.
What can’t be denied is that the tragedy itself created a ripple of raw emotion, and anyone caught on camera in those first minutes was bound to face scrutiny. Charlie Kirk’s shooting stunned his supporters and rattled the political world, and people were desperate to assign blame, or at least to point fingers at anyone who seemed to be on the wrong side of the moment. In that environment, David’s image was frozen, replayed, and spread until he became the “mystery bearded man” who supposedly cheered a killing.
In his own words, David insisted he had no part in the violence, no joy in seeing a man gunned down, and no hidden agenda. He said he acted on instinct, not calculation, and believed chanting “USA” was the best way to redirect the energy of the crowd. Watching the clip with that in mind, you can imagine both interpretations—was it celebration, or was it frantic misjudgment? In truth, only David himself knows exactly what was going through his mind in that split second, and the rest of us are left to debate it from a distance.
The internet has a way of locking people into a single narrative, and it is hard to break out once your face is attached to a viral headline. For David, that headline is “mystery man cheering Kirk’s shooting.” No matter what he says now, some people will never believe him. Others might give him grace, understanding that shock and chaos lead to actions that look different than what they mean. The full truth of that night will always carry a haze, because once gunfire rings out, clarity is often the first casualty.
