Original Article By Ryan Foley
A week has now passed since left-wing activist Tyler Robinson allegedly fatally shot Christian conservative influencer Charlie Kirk at a college campus event in Utah. Kirk’s assassination isn’t the first incident of political violence targeting conservatives in recent years, however.
Here are other examples of when conservatives have faced death or injury for their political beliefs.
On June 14, 2017, as Republican members of Congress practiced for the annual Congressional Baseball Game between Republican and Democratic lawmakers that raises money for charity, left-wing activist James Hodgkinson opened fire on the lawmakers.
Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., who was serving as House Majority Whip at the time, was injured in the attack and nearly died. Capitol Police officers David Bailey and Crystal Griner were also injured in the shooting.
Hodgkinson, who had volunteered for the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had made his disdain for Republicans clear in social media posts and letters to the editor he submitted to his local newspaper ahead of the shooting. In 2015, two years before the shooting, Hodgkinson shared a political cartoon depicting Scalise speaking to members of the Ku Klux Klan. Hodgkinson commented on the cartoon by declaring, “Here’s a Republican that should [lose] His job, but they Gave Him a Raise.”
In an interview with The Washington Post following the attack, one of Hodgkinson’s former neighbors reported that he heard gunshots coming from his yard in the weeks leading up to the shooting, which prompted him to ask him to stop. The neighbor retroactively referred to the gunshots as “target practice.”
On Aug. 29, 2020, as riots engulfed Portland, Oregon, and other major cities nationwide, Aaron Danielson was shot and killed in a targeted attack against Trump supporters.
The U.S. Department of Justice released a statement confirming that Michael Forest Reinoehl, the suspect in the attack, was shot and killed by law enforcement five days later after he grabbed a firearm and tried to escape arrest.
Reinoehl was a member of the far-left militant group Antifa, which Trump designated as a terrorist organization on Wednesday evening, and had a symbol for the Black Lives Matter movement tattooed on his neck. Reinoehl repeatedly posted video footage of himself on social media attending riots and protests throughout the summer of 2020. He had previously faced charges of illegal firearm possession, reckless endangerment, driving under the influence, reckless driving, resisting arrest and interfering with police authority in connection to previous protests he attended.
The New York Times reported that Reinoehl claimed that he killed Danielson in self-defense because he believed he and a friend were about to be stabbed, even though there had been no altercation. In one social media post, Reinoehl suggested that “there will be casualties” in the ongoing conflicts between Antifa and Trump supporters.
On July 31, 2022, as she was campaigning on behalf of a pro-life constitutional amendment in Kansas for Students for Life of America, 18-year-old Grace Hartsock was assaulted by a woman whom she had unsuccessfully tried to convince to support the ballot measure.
In an interview with The Christian Post, Dana Stancavage of Students for Life detailed how the woman shoved Hartsock “with both hands in the chest” and hit her in the head.
While Hartsock wasn’t seriously injured in the incident, she experienced a “major headache” and ended up going to the emergency room.
The Leawood Police Department told The Christian Post at the time that a 37-year-old woman had been arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery in connection with the attack.
On Sept. 20, 2022, as she campaigned against a constitutional amendment to establish a right to abortion in Michigan, 84-year-old Joan Jacobson was shot in the shoulder by 74-year-old Richard Harvey. Harvey, who was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, careless discharge causing injury and reckless use of a firearm in connection with the attack, maintained that the shooting was accidental.
Harvey opened fire as Jacobson was unsuccessfully trying to convince his wife to oppose the amendment. Jacobson drove herself to the police station, where she was then transported to the emergency room. Jacobson survived the shooting.
On May 26, 2023, as they prayed outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Baltimore, Maryland, elder pro-life activists Mark Crosby and Dick Schaefer were brutally beaten. An account of the attack posted on Facebook outlined how an “angry man” approached the pro-life activists and assaulted them.
“As Dick’s back was turned, he lifted Dick off the ground and threw him into the plate glass window. Dick fell, knocking over a large planter and striking his head, losing [consciousness] temporarily,” the Facebook post noted.
“Mark came to Dick’s aid. As he approached, the attacker then turned on Mark, punching him in the face. Mark fell to the ground. The assailant then kicked Mark in the head.”
An image shared by Baltimore County Right to Life showed Crosby with a severely swollen right eye as well as a bloody face and T-shirt. Crosby’s injuries required treatment at a hospital.
More than a year after the attack, 28-year-old Patrick Brice was arrested. Earlier this year, a jury convicted Brice of two counts of second-degree assault and two counts of reckless endangerment.
The American Center for Law and Justice, which has represented the pro-life activists throughout the litigation surrounding their assault, reported last month that Judge Yvette Bryant sentenced Brice to “one year of home detention, three years of probation, and mandatory anger management and therapy.” The legal organization decried Bryant’s decision as a “travesty of justice.”
Two attempted assassinations of Trump last summer sent shockwaves throughout the 2024 presidential election.
On July 13, 2024, as the then-presidential candidate delivered a speech at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a bullet grazed his ear. Secret Service agents successfully rushed Trump off stage and he survived the attack. However, Corey Comperatore, one of the rally’s many attendees, was killed in the gunfire.
The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed in the aftermath of the attack. While Crooks was a registered Republican, campaign finance records show that he had donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project in January 2021.
On Sept. 15, 2024, Ryan Wesley Routh’s attempt to shoot Trump while he was on his golf course at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, was interrupted when a Secret Service agent spotted the gunman and opened fire.
Authorities later caught up with Routh in nearby Martin County, Florida, where they arrested him. Social media posts from Routh indicate strong support for the Black Lives Matter movement and Ukraine in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.
In a self-published book he wrote in 2023, Routh apologized to Iran for his previous support of Trump, whom he denounced as a “retarded child.” He told Iran, “you are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal.”
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