DENVER — As big names from across the country have come under fire for reactions concerning the murder of Charlie Kirk, the late CEO and founder of Turning Point USA, Colorado is also in the thick of the mess, with business owners, politicians, teachers and others in hot water for comments suggesting approval after Kirk was gunned down while speaking at a Utah university campus on Sept. 10.
Probably the most abhorrent comments came from Dan Haddad, who owns Misfits Pizza in Loveland.
“Charlie Kirk is boiling in a pot of his own feces in the depths of HELL,” one of Haddad’s posts reads. “He had the day he deserved. Hail Satin (sic). Thoughts and prayers.”
The Larimer County Republican Party posted his comments on Sept. 18, roughly a week after the Kirk assassination, along with their own comment that Haddad looks the part of his business name “with a scraggly beard, knuckle tattoos and a jacket covered in various patches representing punk acts and anti-war slogans.”
Haddad doubled down on his Kirk-related comments, responding to one critic of his rhetoric online: “fuck his children!!! I hope they die in a school shooting!!! I hope your (sic) kids die in a school shooting.”
While various news media outlets across Colorado spent days reporting on the recent firing (and later reinstatement) of national late-night TV Host Jimmy Kimmel for inflammatory statements about Kirk’s murder, none appear to have reported on Haddad’s vulgar comments, including the local Loveland Reporter-Herald newspaper.
But Haddad is not the only one in hot water across Colorado. Take a look at how some others have responded to Kirk’s political assassination:
- In Mead, the high school administration sent a note home telling parents that their student’s language arts teacher, Christine Engelen, would not be returning to the classroom. Engelen reposted to her social media account a long diatribe by another poster concerning the death of Kirk, that said, among other things: “He was a career fascist … used his platform to normalize cruelty as policy … he died the way he lived: immersed in the violent culture he helped cultivate … he can rest in piss.” However, it was Engelen’s own commentary on the original post that likely led to her walking papers. “I was just reminded that Charlie Kirk was the ‘your body, my choice’ guy.” Engelen went on to say: “Translation: I will r@pe you if I can, and I’ll get away with it because that’s my right as a white man.”
- In El Paso County, a pair of School District 49 teachers were placed on administrative leave for comments made just days after Kirk’s killing. While the specifics are unclear, a statement from the district says: “We are actively investigating reports that two of our staff members may have reacted to the news of the assassination of Charlie Kirk in ways that indicated approval of that action.”
- Broomfield City Councilmember James Marsh-Holschen is rejecting calls for his resignation, and standing by what he wrote in a published opinion piece seeming to imply that Kirk had it coming: “On one side, violence is never the answer. On the other, Kirk spouted hateful, misogynistic, homophobic rhetoric. Some are saying he got what he deserved.”
- Following Kirk’s murder, Tyler Silvy, a former Greeley Tribune reporter who now lives in California and works as a communications specialist for the Marin Municipal Water District posted: “A world with fewer bigots is a better world,” leading Jeri Shepherd, the chair of the Weld County Democrats to “like” his post.
- The day after Kirk’s murder, Democrat State Representative Lorena Garcia to social media to proclaim, among other things: “Yesterday, a hateful, vile, bigoted woman-hating, anti-Black, white christian nationalist was assassinated.” Garcia’s remarks helped sparked an official complaint by Colorado House Republican leadership to majority Democrats around the conduct of their members over the Kirk slaying.
