A small black springer spaniel sniffed around the left side of the stage at the Indiana University Auditorium, unfazed by the 3,200 people watching her in the red, white and blue lights shining through the haze of a fog machine. Seeing Brookie meant Tucker Carlson would be on soon.
Owen Hurd, an IU junior and co-founder of the IU Turning Point USA chapter, had met Carlson earlier in the night during a volunteer meet-and-greet. Hurd talked to Carlson about his dad who had gone to college with Carlson at Trine University in the early 1990s. Carlson remembered him and his fraternity, joking they always gave him a hard time.
Hurd took a photo with Carlson, who also signed his package of Velo Citrus Chill nicotine pouches.
Six weeks earlier, no one had planned for Carlson to be at IU for this event. Instead, Charlie Kirk was supposed to take the stage at the IU Auditorium. But Kirk was assassinated.
On September 10, Hurd was walking to his World Music and Culture class when he learned through the IU Turning Point GroupMe that Kirk had been shot in the neck at Utah Valley University. When he got on X, he saw the video and knew Kirk wasn’t going to survive.
The murder of Charlie Kirk reverberated nationally, even internationally, but the impact was acute with the Turning Point chapter at IU as the students came to grips with Kirk’s death and worked to pull together the event he was supposed to headline.
Behind the scenes, WFIU/WTIU News watched the student group grapple with grief, logistics and a new spotlight.
Kirk was supposed to come to IU for a Turning Point event on Oct. 12. His assassination rocked the IU Turning Point chapter, setting off Hurd’s phone as a storm of messages came in. Members in the club looked up to Kirk, and the news was a devastating blow.
“It’s hard to face the reality that things like this happen in America,” Hurd said.
On top of the emotional toil, it left the question who would speak at the Turning Point event.
As Brookie, Carlson’s dog, nosed around the stage curtains, Bass Music by Trap City blasted through the room. Carlson walked onto the stage waving to the crowd, and Hurd stood with the thousands of people in the audience to welcome him with applause.
While he wished he could’ve been cheering for Kirk, Hurd was excited to hear Carlson.
Political recriminations
The IU Turning Point chapter had been discussing the event for a month since Kirk’s assassination.
Finding a new speaker was a challenge. Some options they discussed like Ben Shapiro would have charged more than $100,000.
Given the quick turnaround, Hurd was grateful the club got Carlson to come in Kirk’s place.
Kirk was known for debating college students during events hosted by Turning Point at university campuses across the country on issues ranging from free speech to government policy. He believed in Christian ideals and conservative policies, sometimes expressing those views in a way that inflamed his political opponents.
It was during one of these events at Utah Valley University where he was shot.
Conspiracy theories broke out immediately with people saying the 150-yard shot must’ve been carried out by a professional. But Hurd hunts when he’s home in San Antonio, so he didn’t believe that.
“A 200- yard shot with, I believe it was a 36 rifle, that’s a shot I’ve made countless times,” Hurd said. “I would not put it to like a needing military training to be able to make that shot.”
He knew when he saw the video that the assassination would cause backlash on both sides of the polarized country, but he never expected to see so many “reprehensible” posts.
“I think it’s abhorrent that we have people that will celebrate the death of people they disagree with,” Hurd said.
Calling out those people became a cause on the political right, even for public comments many considered innocuous. A Ball State University staff member was fired. Indiana attorney general Todd Rokita published messages online that he considered offensive, including those from two IU law professors.
Turning Point organized a vigil for Kirk on Sept. 14, and over 600 people attended. At the event, people wore red, white and blue and speakers including Senator Todd Young, Rokita and Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith remembered Kirk.
The event was one of the first big turnouts IU’s Turning Point chapter had hosted in its year of activity. It was only a fraction of what they would get a month later.
TPUSA and burritos
TPUSA at IU meets once a week for an hour, always in a different location, sometime between 7-9 p.m.
On a sunny Wednesday evening three weeks before the Carlson event, 28 members gathered for the TPUSA meeting at Ballantine Hall in room 227. Hurd sat in the middle of the crowd of white Republicans watching the Cincinnati Reds play the Los Angeles Dodgers on his phone. While people around him asked the score to place bets, Hurd watched the game for the enjoyment of it.
Eating a dinner of chicken tenders and fries from the IMU food court, Hurd bantered with the college men around him about having a meal plan as a junior.
“I don’t have time to cook,” he defended himself. One man joked that he wasn’t eating a Chubbies burrito.
Club president James Chambers set up a presentation on the projector screen at the front. He left the computer to lower blinds, leaving the screen on a meme about undocumented immigrants. In the image, four cells displayed the rapper Drake blocking his face from the camera next to the words, “Passing a government funding bill for the people,” and Drake smiling for the camera next to the words, “Government shutdown to pay illegals’ healthcare.”
The conversation shifted as people took note of the meme. A group of blond women wearing leggings sitting in a mosh of desks behind Hurd commented on the number of “illegals” working in Bloomington.
“ICE can come for the illegals as long as they stay away from Chubbies,” Hurd joked. “They’re doing the Lord’s work.”
“Keep the big booty Latinas,” Chambers responded from the front of the classroom.
As the college students laughed, Chambers started the presentation.
TPUSA’s website says it aims to educate and promote civic engagement. The organization is known for promoting Christian ideals in politics and supporting college-aged Republicans.
In his sophomore year, Hurd cofounded IU’s chapter of TPUSA. Just over a year later, the club has 342 members in its GroupMe.
Hurd got involved with TPUSA because he believes in Christian and Republican values. He serves as the club’s treasurer.
Hurd was raised in a Christian household that went to church on major holidays. He said Kirk’s assassination led him to wanting to practice more. He recently started going to Cornerstone Christian Church with some of his coworkers from Kilroy’s on Kirkwood, where he is a bouncer.
While he continued to watch the Dodgers destroy the Reds throughout the meeting, he often chipped in with comments and ideas for club events, but his attention peaked when Chambers changed the subject to the speaker they had found to replace Kirk.
Tucker Carlson would be coming to IU less than three weeks from that meeting, and there were lots of plans to be made. Hurd perked up when they started discussing security for the event.
Hurd started working security for Kilroy’s on Kirkwood when he was a sophomore. While Hurd said his experience at KOK isn’t useful for an event of that size, Chambers was interested in what he had to say about police sweeping the auditorium and having a double set of metal detectors.
“I would say, there are some nights at KOK, where it’s like you have a knife, like a bunch of people getting kicked out, like really messy drunk,” Hurd said, comparing his job as a bouncer to the event. “But no, like there’s a lot that could go wrong.”
Hurd works at KOK on Saturday nights, watching and regulating the chaos that is drunk college students.
The Saturday before the meeting, he was sitting by the side exit of the bar keeping watch for incidents. On his left, a couple was engaged in a passionate embrace. Across the bar, college men in polos and khakis exploded into cheers as Oregon scored a touchdown.
After a year working security at Kilroy’s, the college junior knew that for a Saturday night, it was tame.
“My focus is on safety, like keeping fights from breaking out,” Hurd said as his eyes scanned the room, jumping from the bar to the door to the crowd. “The rest is up to the bartenders.”
Despite his year of security work, Hurd knew he didn’t have the experience to suggest ideas the police wouldn’t think of for protecting Carlson during the event, especially since the club was trying to be hypervigilant of safety for both attendees and Carlson following Kirk’s assassination on a college campus.
The club expected 5,000-8,000 attendees. They settled on putting it in the IU Auditorium on Oct. 21, using external venues with TVs broadcasting the event for overflow.
Anticipating protests
The club’s discussion shifted to talking about a Reddit thread for protesting the event.
The day before, Hurd had been sitting in front of a monitor on the east side second floor of the Wells Library between short stacks of books surrounded by students studying.
Between studying for an upcoming K201 exam, Hurd texted the GroupMe of IU’s Turning Point USA chapter.
Scrolling through Reddit, he found a post about protesting the Carlson event.
“Average day on Bloomington Reddit,” Hurd wrote as he sent a screenshot of the post to the Turning Point group chat. “If that’s how they want to spend their time, they can be my guest.”
Hurd put down his iPhone, picked up his Wells Library food court turkey club sandwich without green sauce and took a bite before returning to his homework.
Hurd started at IU as pre-Kelley, but he changed to sports marketing in sophomore year. Now, he has his eye set on becoming a general manager of a Major League Baseball team.
“The only way to get there is to be a player or to be a lawyer,” he said, hunching over his computer, trying to lock in.
When scrolling through slides of notes got boring, Hurd sat back, stretching his neck and massaging his shoulder. He picked up his phone and got on X, reading through a mixture of posts mocking modern politics and showing baseball highlights.
He sent a tweet about the Carlson event to the TPUSA group chat and put his phone down again.
After about fifteen minutes, he picked up his phone again and opened the TPUSA group chat to over twenty new messages. Finishing his turkey club, he pulled out a pack of Velo Citrus Chill nicotine pouches and popped one in his mouth before reading the thread.
Turning Point members expected a protest outside of the Carlson event, so security was top of their mind. It continued to be at the meeting.
“Why can’t common sense be restored?” Chambers asked the gathered members. “Frankly, it’s the party of evil that is going against us.”
Chambers changed the slides to the Anti-Defamation League’s list of extremist groups and highlighted that Turning Point had been listed. It has since been removed.
“There are people online who are threatening ‘Let’s go out and attack and protest and disrupt the Tucker Carlson event,’” Chambers said. “We shouldn’t call them evil because it would divide us more, but it’s disgusting and it’s polarizing.”
The meeting ended after an hour and a half, and Hurd went back to his apartment to do homework and watch more baseball. He said juggling work, clubs and classes gets chaotic, so he enjoys having his evenings off.
When Hurd first came to IU, he wanted to rush a fraternity. So, his sophomore year, he did. He got into Pi Lambda Phi, but decided to drop it because the culture didn’t fit him.
Instead, Hurd switched to Republican clubs on campus. He now attends Cornerstone Christian Church and runs a business buying and selling trading cards.
“I think you should claim to be one thing and act that way,” Hurd said, “not kind of claim to be one thing and act another.”
Hurd leaned into the Republican clubs on campus, joining College Republicans and acting as club president for the Turning Point chapter during his sophomore year.
As an officer of the club, he volunteered to usher at the Carlson event. After showing people to their seats, he settled into the front row, ready to watch the results of the club’s work over the previous month.
Heavy security
Carlson made it to the lectern, and Hurd sat back down in his front row seat as the cheering died down. Carlson addressed the crowd for a moment, remembering Charlie Kirk, before inviting students to step up to a microphone in the middle of the auditorium to debate him, following Kirk’s style.
A line formed in the room, gathering more than 40 hopeful questioners.
Hurd watched from his seat as Tucker debated students. From his seat, he could see Carlson’s features changing as he thought about and responded to each question.
As a college-aged woman stood at the microphone debating Carlson about Christian Nationalism and freedom of religion, Hurd appreciated the points she was making.
When a Polish man started debating Carlson about the U.S. funding the war in Ukraine, he knew Carlson was a fitting choice of speaker for the young voter base at IU. In the two-hour event, fewer than 20 people had made it to the microphone, and three asked about the United States funding wars in Palestine and Ukraine.
“Some of the people could’ve been cut off sooner,” Hurd said of the students who had asked Carlson questions.
One speaker debated Carlson about abortion. When Carlson called it ritualistic, people in the crowd started yelling.
“It’s women’s health!” one speaker shouted.
“They shouldn’t have sex!” someone responded.
Hurd hoped it would stay under control. When it did, he was relieved.
More than 4,000 people tried to attend the event. With only 3,200 fitting inside the auditorium, some were turned away at the door.
During the event, only one group came out to protest. A man had set up signs around Showalter Fountain while attendees lined up. The signs criticized the war in Palestine, with messages like “ISRAEL MASSACRES INNOCENTS,” “Would Jesus Ignore This? WILL YOU?” and “Is GOD not Watching?”
More than 20 police officers were posted around the fountain before the event. Inside, there were 11 visible on the floor of the auditorium.
As the club had hoped, the event happened safely. The security and preparation worked.
Near 9 p.m. on Oct. 21, debating ceased in the IU Auditorium, replaced with blasting EDM, a callback to Carlson’s entrance to the stage. The crowd stood and applauded him as he walked off stage left, Brookie following on his heels.
The crowd stood again to give Carlson a standing ovation. In the front row, Hurd clapped, proud that the Turning Point chapter had pulled the event off, especially on such short notice.
“When I started the chapter, it was my goal to bring speakers like this, to have to turn away thousands of people,” Hurd said.
As he left, his phone was at 1 percent battery life from responding to messages throughout the day and taking photos.
In the lobby, he was stopped by the oldest undergraduate student at Kelley, a 43-year-old man wearing a Kelley vest over a white button-down shirt and a red tie. The man congratulated Hurd on the event and shook his hand.
“People go hear people like Tucker to validate their beliefs,” Hurd said. “But as Americans, we shouldn’t be so set in our beliefs. I hope people who came to this event tonight heard a belief they hadn’t heard before.”
As the music changed to Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish, Hurd exited the auditorium. As people walked into the night, a chant rose.
“U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”
