A man who was detained moments after Turning Point USA executive director Charlie Kirk’s killing has been arrested on allegations of trying to thwart authorities by falsely confessing to the fatal shooting.
After being arrested on Monday, 71-year-old George Zinn faces a count of obstructing justice – a second-degree felony – in the wake of Kirk’s killing at Utah Valley University (UVU). He was also booked in connection with images on his cellphone depicting child abuse, said state authorities, who took Zinn into custody after he was released from a hospital that was treating him for a medical condition.
Documents filed in Zinn’s case by UVU campus police allege that he began screaming, “I shot him – now shoot me,” in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s killing at Utah Valley University (UVU) on 10 September. Video of officers holding Zinn down was widely circulated online, leading some to believe that authorities had quickly arrested a suspect in the killing of the conservative political activist.
Then, when asked by an officer where the gun used to kill Kirk was, Zinn allegedly replied: “I am not going to tell you.” Police contend that Zinn subsequently admitted that he was not the shooter and did not know who was – and he purportedly claimed that he had acted how he did to draw attention away from the real killer in hopes of becoming “a martyr” for Kirk.
Zinn was brought to a hospital after experiencing an unspecified medical episode and told officers he was “glad he said he shot the individual so the real suspect could get away”, according to police documents as well as a statement from authorities.
He allegedly was reluctant to let investigators look at his phone, saying he used the device “to look at child sexual abuse material”, local sheriff’s deputies wrote in a separate report, as the Utah news outlet KSL noted. A search of Zinn’s phone allegedly confirmed there were more than 20 images depicting child sexual abuse, including of minors believed to be between 5 and 12 years old – as well as explicit messages sharing the imagery with others, investigators said.
Ultimately, authorities arrested Zinn on counts of obstruction of justice linked to the aftermath of Kirk’s killing and sexual exploitation of minors for the alleged content on his phone.
Police announced the arrest of Kirk’s actual suspected killer on Friday after a two-day manhunt. He has been identified as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, of Washington county, Utah, about 260 miles south of UVU.
Zinn has a history of criminal charges and convictions in Utah over the previous three decades, according to KSL and other local media reports. Notably, in 2013, he was arrested on allegations that he asked Salt Lake City, Utah, marathon organizers if he could help set up bombs at the finish line.
The deadly 2013 Boston marathon bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds of others had been days earlier.
Citing information from a district attorney whose office had previously prosecuted him, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Zinn was “politically conservative, leaning libertarian”.
On Monday, a judge ordered Zinn be held without bail, according to online court records. Robinson was expected in court Tuesday to face formal murder charges.
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