Canadian man misidentified online as Charlie Kirk shooter

Published on September 12, 2025 at 21:41
4 min read
By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA

A retired banker living in Toronto, Canada, was falsely accused online of being the gunman who fatally shot right-wing US activist Charlie Kirk at a September 10, 2025 university event in Utah. The man, Michael Mallinson, is not a registered Democrat from Utah, as the posts sharing his image claimed; the 77-year-old told AFP he has never been to the state and did not know who Kirk was until the rumors implicating him took off online.

"BREAKING Charlie Kirk shooter confirmed to be Michael Mallinson a registered Democrat in the state of Utah," said a September 10 post on X from what appears to be a local news station in Reno, Nevada.

Screenshot from X taken September 10, 2025

The post, which has since been deleted, included two photos. One showed a bald, bespectacled man who was initially apprehended by police at the scene of Kirk's shooting. Another showed Michael Mallinson, whose appearance is similar.

Additional posts circulated Mallinson's photos -- sometimes alongside pictures of the arrested man -- and accused him of being the gunman who shot Kirk dead. The posts rocketed across X and other platforms in the immediate aftermath of the killing of the 31-year-old far-right founder of the conservative group Turning Point USA, a polarizing figure with a massive following.

In hundreds of replies to his posts on X, reviewed by AFP, angry users hurled expletives and threats at Mallinson.

But Mallinson is not a suspect in Kirk's killing -- nor is he the person who was arrested at Utah Valley University, whom police later released.

"I have absolutely nothing to do with this," Mallinson told AFP in a September 11 interview from Canada, explaining that he has never been to Utah and had not heard of Kirk before the shooting.

He said he was 'horrified and shocked" when his daughter called in a panic, pleading that he delete his social media accounts to protect himself after she received what he described as a "very nasty message" on Facebook. Mallinson said he promptly deactivated his X and Facebook accounts, alerted police and has been emailing his friends and relatives the truth.

"It's my image, it's my name, but it's not me, and I don't really know what to do," he said. "I worry about longer-term ramifications. That stuff stays on social media forever."

On LinkedIn, where he maintains a presence, he posted a link to an article from the US fact-checking outlet Lead Stories "to set the record straight" (archived here and here).

Following a multi-day manhunt, Utah Governor Spencer Cox on September 12 announced that authorities had captured a suspect, identified as Utah resident Tyler Robinson, 22, who he said was not a student at Utah Valley University. Mug shots of Robinson have been released, alongside images shared by authorities showcasing him as a person of interest.

A TV monitor displays a picture of Tyler Robinson, suspected of killing Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025 in Orem, Utah, on September 12, 2025 (AFP / Patrick T. Fallon)

This combination of images released by the FBI on September 11, 2025 shows photos of a person of interest in the investigation into the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk that occurred on September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah (FBI / HANDOUT)

The hoax falsely blaming Mallinson started with "@KRXITV," an X account posing as Fox 11 Reno, a local news station.

But Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns the Fox affiliate, told the New York Times the account was an impersonator they were trying to get removed (archived here). The organization's authentic handle on X, linked on its website, is "@fox11reno" (archived here and here).

AFP contacted Sinclair for additional comment, but no response was forthcoming.

AFP has investigated other misinformed narratives about the Kirk shooting here, here and here.

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