Charlie Kirk deadly shooting: Elected officials, political leaders in Harris County react

HOUSTON - Charlie Kirk, the conservative firebrand and founder of Turning Point USA, has died after he was shot while speaking at a Utah Valley University event in Orem, Utah.

Graphic video posted to social media shows Kirk on stage, sitting in a chair, talking into a microphone. A single gunshot was heard and Kirk's head thrust back as he fell. People started screaming and running away, the video shows. 

Kirk, 31, was on campus for the first stop of his American Comeback Tour.

What they're saying:

"This is a tragedy that is going to reverberate in American politics for some time," said State Senator Paul Bettencourt. 

"I'm so saddened to hear that news. It makes me think what is our world coming to," said District G City Councilmember Mary Nan Huffman. "We can have differences of opinion, we don't have to resort to violence."

"My until thoughts were just shock and disbelief," said Vanessa Ingrassia, Executive Director of the Harris County Republican Party.

"I think anybody in this country sees this as just an unbelievable pattern of killings for political reasons, and it's just terrible," said Mike Doyle, Harris County Democratic Party Chair.

"This case is a political assassination, and it's an abomination that our country has reached a point where these sort of assaults on political figures has become almost commonplace,"  said Kyle Scott, VP of the Harris County Republican Party.  

"Everybody in America needs to step back and say we've had enough of rage because that's what this is, it's rage," said Bettencourt.

Politics aside, Charlie Kirk was a young father, husband, and two young small kids, have to grow up without their father," Ingrassia said.