On September 10, 2025, Hunter Kozak headed from the hospital, where his baby daughter Hope had been born a few days earlier, to his university campus to debate Charlie Kirk.As a liberal, he disagreed strongly with Kirk, but welcomed the Turning Point USA co-founder's willingness to take on all-comers at Utah Valley University, where he was studying to be a math teacher.At 12.20pm, in front of a 3,000-strong crowd, Kozak's turn came up and he approached to a few feet away, dressed in a gray hoodie and blue jeans.'Hey Charlie, hopefully we're gonna have a little more disagreement,' he joked.Kozak had considered asking about the Epstein files, but decided to address the issue of mass shootings with Kirk, a strong defender of the Second Amendment.It promised to be a good and constructive debate. Kozak explained that a recent attack by a transgender shooter had led to MAGA talk of removing gun rights for transgender Americans, which drew cheers from the crowd.'Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last ten years?' he asked.With a customary quick riposte, Kirk replied: 'Too many.' Hunter Kozak asks Charlie Kirk a question moments before the shooting on September 10, 2025 Kirk speaking at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025 in Orem, UtahNoting the lack of empirical evidence, Kozak hit back: 'In America, it’s five. Now, five is a lot. I'm gonna give you some credit. Do you know how many mass shooters there have been over the last ten years?'Kirk responded: 'Counting or not counting gang violence?''Great...,' said Kozak.But before he could go on, a shot rang out, hitting Kirk in the neck and fatally wounding him.The bullet must have passed close to Kozak, probably just over his head. His body shaking, he threw his hands up over his ears and hit the floor.Looking back one year on, Kozak's own memory plays tricks on him. It tells him he was 'calm and collected' and that he 'just sort of ducked down and got out of there.''But I rewatched the video, and I'm in a panic, and I'm horrified,' he told the Daily Mail on the anniversary. 'It's almost like an out-of-body experience sometimes when I rewatch those videos.'Tyler Robinson, 23, who was charged in connection with Kirk's killing, has pleaded not guilty to all counts, including aggravated murder.The risk to others around Kirk is considered an aggravating factor under state law that makes Robinson eligible for the death penalty. Tyler Robinson has pleaded not guilty to charges including aggravated murder Kozak was probably the next person the bullet passed closest to.'There wasn't really time to process that in the moment, but of course later, when I'm reliving it,' he said. 'It's not lost on me.'I mean, I was speaking to him. I saw him get hit, which we all saw.'Something he could never have foreseen was that people would try to make him part of some elaborate conspiracy, and it began 'immediately.'Conspiracy theorists jumped on the coincidence that he had been asking about guns at the moment Kirk was shot.They called him a 'patsy,' a 'murderer,' and a 'crisis actor.' They claimed he had signaled the shooter by touching his glasses, and that he had practiced his reaction to the shooting beforehand, all of which was false and ludicrous.'They have a ton of terms,' said Kozak. 'I definitely wonder why people who saw me at that event felt like they should throw me to a mob. I saw comments online creeping up immediately.'Obviously, the very first piece of information is what he [Kirk] was saying, and I was the obvious person to immediately go to.'He was talking about guns, he's talking about shootings, and then they get shot. I think when it comes to conspiracy theorists, they often say that they don't believe in coincidences.' Erika Kirk leaves the Fourth District Courthouse in Provo, Utah, after a hearing for Robinson on July 6 Kozak was targeted by conspiracy theorists after the Charlie Kirk shooting People started making YouTube videos about him, getting hundreds of thousands of views.One of them 'numerous times made fun of the way that I responded, and they said this is clearly an act,' said Kozak. 'It really upset me. It really horrified me.'They hide under plausible deniability. It's always, "I'm just asking questions, I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but also isn't all of this suspicious?" And then spend three hours talking about how suspicious I am. I try to ignore it as best as I can.''It's not just being called a crisis actor. It's like these people genuinely think that I'm capable of murder.'At one point, a man started circling around his apartment building, rambling conspiracy theories, and there was a flood of 'really aggressive direct messages' including death threats.One YouTuber offered $20,000 to stream an interview of him taking a lie detector test. He looked up the false positive rates for lie detector tests and declined.The experience has made Kozak interested in why conspiracy theorists do what they do.He decided to make his own hour-long video, in which he talks to conspiracy theorists themselves.On one occasion, he phoned a YouTuber who had been publishing content about him.'It was jarring how pleasant, how kind he was in comparison to the videos,' he said. 'It really gave him pause to speak to me. It was about a four-month campaign of him making these videos, and then I talked to him, and we took an eight-month sabbatical. And two weeks ago, he started making videos again.'He also contacted someone who had called him a 'crisis actor' online.'She was just horrified that I reached back,' he said. 'It was like I was a punching bag that she was using, and it grew a face in front of her and said, "Why are you punching me?" And she's like, "I don't even know, I was just letting out my anger."' Kirk with Donald Trump at America Fest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona The key question in charging Robinson with aggravated murder was whether he endangered others when he allegedly opened fire on Kirk in a crowded areaAs to what is behind all the conspiracy theories, he blames a variety of factors, including 'sad people' who 'feel venerated if they're able to spread information.''I do think that a monetary incentive is part of the conversation, but it's not all of it,' he said. 'I do think that they also are motivated by what they think is happening, and they do genuinely think that, in the case of one guy who thinks that I'm behind it, that Charlie Kirk is actually still alive and on an island somewhere.'Kozak feels deep sympathy for Erika Kirk, who has also been targeted by conspiracy theorists.'She's the head of the largest conservative organization in America, but that also needs to live side by side with the fact that she's a widow and she has been harassed probably orders of magnitude more than I have,' he said. 'And I deeply sympathize with it. I'm critical of her politics, but that is a woman who did lose a husband.' Following a recent court hearing, the Kirk family released a statement online that said: 'Today's decision marks an important step in our family's pursuit of justice for [Charlie]' A screenshot taken from video footage released by the FBI on September 11, 2025, shows a person of interest running on the roof at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, immediately after the fatal shooting of KirkThe murder case against Robinson is headed for trial, and the defendant could face the death penalty if he’s convicted.Earlier this month, Utah District Judge Tony Graf sided with prosecutors who said they had 'a mountain of evidence' that Robinson fatally shot the conservative activist. Robinson pleaded not guilty to all counts, including aggravated murder, following Graf’s decision.The defense team tried to block a trial or at least take the death penalty off the table, arguing that prosecutors failed to show Kirk’s shooting placed others around him at risk of death.Kirk’s family called the ruling 'an important step in our family’s pursuit of justice.'