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← (Possible) Cover‑up

FBI Asked a Witness to Delete Their Video (Claims)

:::caution Legal Disclaimer Nothing on this page is a claim of fact that any living person or organization knew of, planned, participated in, or covered up any crime, or acted illegally, immorally, or unethically. We make no claim that anyone named here knew anything beforehand or did anything wrong. This page documents questions and allegations raised in public commentary — not findings of fact. All persons and organizations named are presumed innocent; the allegations referenced are unproven and have not been established in any court. :::

One of the more striking claims circulating about the September 10, 2025 killing of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University is that the FBI did not merely fail to collect a witness's footage — it allegedly asked the witness to delete it. This page documents that reported account. It is presented as an unverified claim. The FBI has not, as of this writing, publicly confirmed or addressed it, and there are ordinary evidence-handling explanations that could fit the same facts.

It is important to separate this claim from a different one covered on a sibling page: reports that some bystanders' phone footage appeared to vanish or get altered on its own before they arrived home (see Videos Deleted Remotely). That is a separate allegation. This page is specifically about a witness who says he was explicitly asked by the FBI to remove a video he had recorded — though, per his telling, files also later began disappearing from his phone anyway.

The account​

The most widely cited version of this story involves a man identified in social-media posts as Ryne Simmons, described in various posts as a friend of Kirk who was in or near the close-up area. He is also referenced as the person behind the X account @RynesTime, which was reportedly deleted around October 29, 2025. His account was amplified through the X post @ninoboxer and a wave of other accounts described below.

According to those posts, Simmons says he witnessed the shooting and captured a close-up video on his phone — by some descriptions shot from behind Kirk, and described elsewhere as a 4K, 60‑frames‑per‑second recording. If genuine and authentic, such a high-resolution, high-frame-rate file could be unusually valuable for frame-by-frame analysis of the moment of the wound.

According to the account, Simmons sent the video to the FBI — reportedly under Director Kash Patel's leadership — believing he was helping investigators. He then says he was instructed to delete it, with agents reportedly telling him it would be better for him mentally, citing that the footage "might trigger PTSD." The posts describe at least one follow-up call to confirm the video had in fact been removed. Per his telling, Simmons saved a copy of the footage anyway — reportedly archived on an external hard drive — rather than destroying it.

Investigation notes compiled for this site characterize the calls more specifically: that "FBI at [the] Federal level called a few times to make sure [the] video was deleted," and that the file was a "close up, 4K @ 60fps … a critical video" the FBI "wanted him to delete." On that telling it was not a single courtesy call but repeated contact to verify erasure of a high-value recording — the detail that, more than anything else in the account, is read by critics as inconsistent with ordinary evidence collection. As with everything on this page, that is a reported characterization, not an independently confirmed fact.

Ryne Simmons's reported statements​

Drawing only from what the cited posts attribute to him, the reported claims are, in summary:

  • He says he was present at the UVU event, described as a friend of Kirk, and personally recorded the shooting at close range — by some descriptions from behind Kirk.
  • He describes the recording as a critical close-up, high-quality file (reported in some posts as 4K at 60fps).
  • He says he voluntarily sent the video to the FBI to assist the investigation.
  • He says the FBI then told him to delete the video rather than retaining it as evidence, framing it as being for his mental well-being.
  • He says the FBI called to confirm the deletion had happened — which, in his telling, is the point at which "it started to feel wrong."
  • He says he kept a copy of the footage despite being asked to remove it, saving it to a hard drive.
  • He says files, photos, or videos nonetheless began disappearing from his phone anyway — which some posts interpret as a remote wipe or hacking.

Quoted phrasing reported in posts and clips​

The same roughly 1:10–1:20 video clip of Simmons speaking circulated across many accounts, with these phrasings reported (all attributed, not verified):

  • "I think it's best that you erase the video from your phone because it's going to give you PTSD."
  • "They said it would be better for me mentally if I deleted it."
  • "Then one of them called me later to confirm I'd actually done it. That's when it started to feel wrong."

Every item above is an attributed claim — "according to Simmons" / "he says" — not an established fact. The underlying video and Simmons's full identity and statements have not been independently verified on this site, and the account said to be his (@RynesTime) was reportedly deleted, which limits further verification.

How this differs from the remote-deletion claim​

This page and the sibling Videos Deleted Remotely page describe two mechanically different allegations, and it is worth keeping them apart:

  • This page (a person asked to delete): the alleged act is a human instruction — agents reportedly telling a cooperating witness, in words, to erase a file he controlled, then reportedly calling back to verify he had. The witness keeps physical control of the device the whole time; the deletion, if it happened, is something he is asked to perform himself.
  • The remote-deletion page (files vanishing on their own): the alleged act is automatic or remote — footage reportedly disappearing or being altered on a phone with no one asking the owner to do anything, sometimes before the owner got home.

The Simmons account is unusual because, in his telling, it spans both: he says he was first verbally asked to delete the close-up file, and then, separately, that files later began disappearing from his phone anyway. That second part overlaps with the remote-deletion claim and is treated there. This page stays scoped to the part where, according to Simmons, the FBI verbally asked him to delete his own recording and called to confirm.

The "how many other witnesses" question​

A recurring theme in the threads is not just what Simmons says happened to him, but what it might imply about other witnesses. As of this writing, no other witness has been publicly named on this site as having been verbally asked by the FBI to delete footage; the Simmons account is the single named instance.

Commentators nonetheless asked, in the cited posts, "How many witnesses followed these FBI instructions?" and "Is this why we've gotten so little footage from witnesses?" Those are open questions, not findings. The reported scarcity of high-quality public bystander footage is what gave the single Simmons account its reach — but one reported case, even if accurate, does not establish a pattern. This site treats the existence of any additional verbally-asked-to-delete accounts as unconfirmed and actively sought, and will add them here only if a specific, attributable witness comes forward.

How the story spread on X​

:::caution These are third-party social-media characterizations, not facts The quoted phrasings below — including "FBI DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE," "Cover-up confirmed?," and "This is a cover up" — are the words of the individual posters, reproduced to show how the claim spread. They are unverified opinion and rhetoric, not established fact. Nothing here should be read as a finding that the FBI, Director Kash Patel, or any agent destroyed evidence, obstructed justice, or did anything unlawful. The FBI has not confirmed the account, and none of it has been established in any court. :::

Discussion reportedly exploded starting around October 25, 2025, with viral threads and a shared video clip of Simmons. Among the amplifying accounts and their reported framing:

  • @ShadowofEzra (Oct 25, 2025) — reported as the highest-engagement thread: "A witness to Charlie Kirk's assassination now says Kash Patel's FBI told him to delete his footage of the incident… Ryne Simmons says he sent the video to the FBI believing he was helping, but was instead told to erase it from his phone because it might trigger PTSD. Agents would later call him to confirm if it was deleted. Simmons says he has now saved and archived the footage on his hard drive."
  • @BasedSamParker (Oct 25, 2025) — "BREAKING, FBI DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE: Ryne Simmons says the FBI tried to get him to DELETE his Charlie Kirk assassination video. Is this why we've gotten so little footage from witnesses?! How many witnesses followed these FBI instructions? … Cover-up confirmed?"
  • @JoshWalkos (Oct 26, 2025) — "FBI to Kirk assassination witness about his video he tried to share with them: 'I think it's best that you erase the video from your phone because it's going to give you PTSD.' They then gave him a follow up call to see if he deleted it. Totally normal investigation."
  • @DiligentDenizen (Oct 25, 2025) — describes Simmons being instructed to destroy the footage to avoid "PTSD," with agents "even calling to make sure he did."
  • Others — accounts including @ninoboxer, @JustTheTweets17 ("not normal, this is a coverup!"), and @AdameMedia ("FBI DEMANDS CHARLIE KIRK WITNESS DELETE EVIDENCE… This is a cover up.") echoed the same clip and framing, often tagging figures such as Candace Owens.

These are reposts and commentary, not independent confirmation. They are catalogued here to show how the claim propagated, not to establish that any part of it is true.

Why it matters​

If accurate as described, the account would raise obvious questions. Asking a cooperating witness to delete original footage — rather than securing it as evidence — would run contrary to what most people expect of an evidence- gathering investigation, where original recordings are preserved, hashed, and chain-of-custody documented. A follow-up call specifically to confirm a deletion, if it occurred as described, would be harder to square with routine collection.

The reason the "called a few times to confirm" detail carries weight is that it inverts the normal direction of evidence handling. In a standard investigation, a witness's original recording is imaged, hash-verified, logged into evidence, and preserved — the agency's interest runs toward keeping the file and its metadata intact, not toward confirming its destruction. An agency that proactively follows up to make sure a 4K, 60fps close-up was erased would, on its face, be acting against the recording's evidentiary value. That is precisely why critics frame the account as evidence suppression rather than collection. The counterweight, stated in full below, is that the entire account is unverified and that narrower instructions can be misremembered as "delete it."

The claim also fits a broader pattern that critics point to in this case: multiple reports of footage being unavailable, withheld, or said to have been altered, alongside complaints that high-quality angles the public has asked for were never released. Commentators have asked, in the posts, "How many witnesses followed these FBI instructions?" and "Is this why we've gotten so little footage from witnesses?" Whether those reports reflect coordination, ordinary investigative secrecy, or simple confusion is exactly the open question.

Broader context cited in the threads​

Posters tied the Simmons account to several other case threads. These connections are the posters' interpretations, not established links:

  • A camera behind Kirk reportedly taken down quickly — some threads point to news-crew footage said to show a camera behind the stage being removed shortly after the shooting, with a TPUSA staffer reportedly securing the SD card or 4K footage. (TPUSA personnel are named in these third-party posts; this site does not assert wrongdoing by any named individual.)
  • Limited public release of witness/phone footage overall — cited as the reason the deletion claim resonated.
  • A gag order attributed to Judge Tony Graf — described as restricting what witnesses and others can say publicly.
  • Disputed timeline/narrative details — including arguments over shot direction (rear-impact claims versus the official roof-shooter account), some tied to independent frame-by-frame analyses (e.g., posts by @JG_CSTT) said to rely on high-quality iPhone files.

These threads connect the deletion claim to the wider cover‑up discussion. None of the connections are confirmed here.

Counterarguments / innocent explanations​

There are reasonable, non-sinister readings of the same reported facts, and they should be stated plainly:

  • The account is unverified. It rests on social-media posts, and the account said to belong to Simmons (@RynesTime) was reportedly deleted. The video, the calls, and the instruction to delete have not been independently confirmed, and the FBI has not publicly addressed them.
  • Skeptics in the same threads pushed back. Some called Simmons a "grifter," noted the account deletion, or argued that "if the FBI was up to this, they would have confiscated his phone" rather than asking him to delete a copy he controlled.
  • Misunderstanding is possible. A witness might interpret routine instructions — for example, "do not post this publicly while the investigation is active," or "do not distribute copies" — as being asked to delete it, when investigators meant something narrower.
  • Copy management, not destruction. Agencies sometimes ask sources not to keep circulating sensitive, graphic material, to avoid evidence contamination or premature public release. That is different from destroying the only copy, and could be miscommunicated as "delete it."
  • No confirmation of who called. The claim that the FBI "called to confirm" is part of the same unverified account.
  • Phone files "disappearing" has mundane explanations. Storage issues, sync errors, accidental deletion, or app behavior can all remove files without any remote action.
  • Self-reported details can be wrong or exaggerated in the chaotic aftermath of a traumatic event.

None of these innocent explanations have been confirmed either. They are listed to make clear that the reported account, while serious, is not proof of wrongdoing by any named individual or agency.

Sources​

  • @ninoboxer on X, account attributed to witness Ryne Simmons — x.com/ninoboxer/status/1982164944914162103
  • @ShadowofEzra, @BasedSamParker, @JoshWalkos, @DiligentDenizen, @JustTheTweets17, and @AdameMedia on X — reposts and commentary amplifying the same clip (Oct 25–26, 2025). The originating account, reported as @RynesTime, was reportedly deleted around Oct 29, 2025.
  • Secondary write-ups reported to have amplified the story include WLT Report, The People's Voice, and IBTimes. These are aggregator/opinion outlets; treat their accounts as unverified.

This page will be updated if the FBI issues a statement, if the footage is released or authenticated, or if the witness's account is independently corroborated or contradicted.