George Zinn, present at Kirk shooting, charged with possession of child sex abuse material

The Utah County Sheriff’s Office has released information on the arrest and booking of George Zinn, aged 71, on charges of obstruction of justice and possession of child sex abuse material.

Zinn was present at the Utah Valley University (UVU) event where Charlie Kirk was shot and killed last week.

“Shorty after that shooting occurred, and while people were fleeing the area, Zinn was seen yelling that he had shot Charlie Kirk,” the sheriff’s office statement says. “UVU Police took Zinn into custody and transported him to the UVU Police department. At that time, Zinn was not co-operative with law enforcement and did not want to speak.”

The office added that “Zinn began to have a medical issue” and was taken to hospital. While there, he said he was not the shooter but had yelled to hinder the police response.

Zinn also spoke to an FBI agent and an agent from the Utah State Bureau of Investigation, who asked to look at his phone.

“Zinn told the Agents that he uses his phone to view and abuse Child Sex Abuse Material and there may be some images on his phone,” the office said. “Those Agents did see several images on the phone of prepubescent girls scantily dressed.”

At that time, Utah County Special Victims Unit detectives took over Zinn’s case. On Monday, a search warrant was obtained for his phone.

“During a preliminary review of the phone … investigators did view over 20 images of children ranging from 5 to 12 years old in various stages of undress and sexual posing,” the office said. “There were several very graphic sexual text threads in which Zinn shared the images with other parties.”

Zinn told investigators that he gets sexual gratification from viewing and sharing these images, and that his preferred victim age is 5 to 12 years old. He remains in Utah County Jail under the two charges.

Last week, a story in the Salt Lake Tribune quoted Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill as referring to Zinn as odd but overall harmless, “more of a gadfly.” His criminal history dates back to the 1980s.

The paper also made reference to a video circulating at the time that showed a uniformed officer and men in plainclothes holding Zinn’s arms and moving him away from the scene of the shooting.

Near the end of the video, one officer is heard saying: “He said he shot him, but I don’t know.”

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