WARREN — Judge David Engler stood on the stage, wearing a white T-shirt reading FREEDOM in black capital letters, and looked out at a crowd of people donned mostly in red, white and blue. 

“Who is Charlie Kirk?” he called out into the microphone.

“We are Charlie Kirk!” the crowd chanted back. 

Supporters gathered at the Warren Amphitheater Sunday afternoon for a public vigil honoring Kirk, a political commentator and founder of conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA (TPUSA), who was shot and killed Sept. 10 in an act of apparent political violence. The Chris Higbee Band played a full set, followed by a live stream of Kirk’s memorial service in Glendale, Arizona. 

The Arizona service brought in tens of thousands of people from across the country, according to TPUSA, filling State Farm Stadium as well as overflow seating at nearby Desert Diamond Arena. 

Karen Studer of Hubbard, an attendee at the Warren event, said she had followed Kirk on social media and was a fan of his appearances on college campuses. 

“He was a blessing to everybody,” Studer said. “I don't know how anybody could misinterpret his mission, or love for people and open debate and freedom of speech.”

Engler planned the public vigil alongside Mark Hanni, a fellow Trumbull County judge. He told 21 News he started planning the event on Monday, less than a week beforehand.

“It's about the opportunity to bring people closer to Jesus, because that's what Charlie Kirk was actually about in all of his speeches,” Engler said of the vigil. “It was always God first, then family and then country.”

Attendees who spoke with 21 News emphasized Kirk's Christian faith, with some arguing he wasn't a political person. Kirk was known for traveling to college campuses across the country to engage in political debates with students, as he was doing at the time of his death at Utah Valley University.

He was also a provocative figure, taking positions that some people, particularly on the left, deemed racist, misogynistic or extreme. 

Jaladah Aslam, president of the Youngstown Warren Black Caucus, spoke with 21 News prior to Kirk’s memorial. Aslam condemned Kirk’s shooting and said she is praying for his family, but she also noted she found many of Kirk’s positions offensive — specifically calling out comments he made about Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, both Black women. 

“I grieve for his children, but I’m not grieving him personally, because he wouldn’t be grieving for me,” Aslam said. 

She added that she would like to see the country’s reckoning with Kirk’s murder center less around personal opinions of him as an individual, and more around the broader issue of violence and tolerance in our political discourse. 

“Are we just going to continue to go at each other because it's the left versus the right, or are we going to have a real conversation about tolerance and respect, and about ending violence and toning down the rhetoric in this nation?” Aslam said. “I think that's more important, quite frankly, than the legacy of, or the distaste of, Charlie Kirk.”