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The chairwoman of the Loudoun County, Virginia board of supervisors criticized murdered political activist Charlie Kirk while expressing compassion for his family during roundtable remarks at September’s meeting.
Loudoun, about 30 miles west of Washington, is a formerly-Republican bastion that has swung hard to the left and become ground-zero in recent election seasons as a prominent site for culture war battles – including transgender school restroom policies that have marked the 2021 and 2025 statewide contests.
Several members of the Democratic-majority board spoke during their monthly public huddle in Leesburg, offering differing remembrances of Kirk, who was murdered during one of his famous collegiate speaking engagements.
Chairwoman Phyllis Randall, an at-large Democrat, said Wednesday that as a therapist by-trade, she understands people can hold more than one emotion at a time and the “wonderful complexity of humanity.”
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“Obviously, no person should be gunned down. No person should be murdered. Not kids in schools, not lawmakers in their homes, not political antagonists,” she said.
“At the same time, I don’t feel the need to sugarcoat or ignore or gloss over some of the behavior that Mr. Kirk, himself, engaged in while he was living … A death, even a horrible death, does not automatically erase the harm a person did in his life. In my opinion, Charlie Kirk engaged in promoting political violence and division.”
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“While I hold empathy for Mr. Kirk — In fact, I hold empathy and compassion for our entire nation right now. And I pray for our nation as a person of faith … God understands that I’m struggling with these feelings,” she said.
She reiterated that Kirk should not have been murdered but that while in life, Kirk “pressed against my community.”
Randall, who is Black, alleged Kirk also “put many communities in increased danger.”
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Supervisor Caleb Kerschner of Hamilton, one of two Republicans on the board, said in his public remarks that the nation hadn’t seen a political figure murdered so publicly since the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Kennedy brothers.
“What makes it even more chilling is it appears to be done in political ideological reasons: Something we would see in other countries, but not America,” Kerschner said.
Kerschner added that the most disturbing development following Kirk’s murder has been “internet trolls and radical individuals” celebrating the killing.
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“It is one thing to oppose and argue the ideology of someone you disagree with. It is quite another to promote violence towards such individuals. America was built on the principles of freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of debate, and individual liberty. No one can deny or disagree that Charlie lived by this and openly encouraged discourse from any who would engage,” he said.
The board’s vice chairman, Michael Turner, a Democrat from Ashburn, echoed Kerschner in recounting growing up in the 1960s when political violence was last at its peak.
“We are in a tit-for-tat across the board at every level of our society for hatred,” said Turner.
In the wake of Kirk’s murder, he said he wants to be more understanding of opposing views.
“I have a friend who’s a MAGA — he is a friend, but he’s a MAGA — I don’t quite know how to reconcile that, but I do every day because he’s a friend,” he said.
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