A 71-year-old man has been charged with obstruction after allegedly pretending to be the gunman in the assassination of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk.
George Zinn was arrested moments after the fatal Sept. 10 shooting of the right-wing activist at Utah Valley University, when he told an officer at the scene: “I shot him, now shoot me.”
Video taken during the chaotic aftermath of the shooting showed officers escorting Zinn away as his trousers slipped to his ankles while bystanders shouted, “How dare you?” One officer was caught on camera saying, “He said he shot him, but I don’t know.”
The clips were soon shared on social media, sparking confusion about whether the killer had been caught.
According to police documents obtained by Fox 13, Zinn repeatedly insisted he had pulled the trigger, later telling officers he wanted “to be a martyr” and was only trying to distract attention from “the real shooter.”
Authorities say his lies wasted critical investigative resources before the actual suspect, Tyler Robinson, was taken into custody.
Zinn was booked into Utah County Jail on felony obstruction charges. Police have not indicated whether he knew Robinson or had any involvement in any plot to kill Kirk.
The case has been clouded by misleading claims from the outset—many of them amplified by Trumpworld allies.
Kash Patel, the podcaster turned FBI chief, has been dubbed “Keystone Kash” for his bungling leadership of the manhunt.
The FBI director stoked chaos with his now-deleted tweets blaming “radical left terrorists” before any facts were known.
He later admitted on Fox & Friends that he should have “worded [the post] differently.”
Patel has been repeatedly called out for mishandling the Kirk fallout, from hyping unverified claims about the shooter’s motives to amplifying conspiracy theories online.
His job is now reportedly on the line.
Following the arrest of Zinn, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that he has been a familiar—and often disruptive—presence at Utah political and cultural events for decades, turning up everywhere from GOP gatherings to protests and film screenings.
Prosecutors say Zinn’s rap sheet goes back to the 1980s, often for trespass and disorderly conduct. Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill described him as a politically conservative, libertarian-leaning gadfly who was more oddball than menace.
This year alone, Park City police arrested him after he repeatedly returned to Q&A sessions at the Sundance Film Festival despite being banned, and Ogden officers hauled him in on a “pedestrian in roadway” misdemeanor after he allegedly refused to leave traffic—telling an officer he didn’t care if cars “waited all day.”
His most serious case came in 2013, when he was accused of making a bomb threat against the Salt Lake City Marathon. Local newspaper reports say he served probation after pleading guilty to a lesser charge.
