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Dispatch, Police Radio & Scanner Timeline — September 10

Radio traffic is the one record from September 10, 2025 that nobody had time to edit. It was recorded live, in the heat of the moment, by people who did not yet know what the official story would be. This page walks the day through the dispatch and scanner channel — the first shots-fired report, the suspect description that was actually broadcast, the campus lockdown, the detentions, and the hospital-car chase that the hospital later said never happened. Where the tapes and the press conferences disagree, both versions are shown. Recordings referenced here are archived scanner audio narrated by citizen researchers, not certified transcripts released by any agency.

The Radio Timeline​

Before the shot​

12:23–12:30 PM MDT — The first three minutes​

  • 12:23:30 PM MDT — The shot. The courtyard-side seconds are reconstructed on 10 Minutes After the Shot; the shot-time dispute itself is on 12:23 vs 12:27.

  • 12:26 PM MDT — Per police audio, the first report of the shooting comes in — roughly three minutes after the round was fired at an event with uniformed officers present. That gap is examined on its own page: Three Minutes to the First Police Report.

  • Immediately after — Dispatchers begin broadcasting a suspect description that multiple witnesses and later commentators quote consistently: a male in all black, wearing a black mask, described in some transmissions with a black tactical helmet, carrying a long gun. Some citizen transcriptions and early press (including People Magazine-style recaps) add long hair and aviator-style glasses to the tactical description near the library. This description does not match the jeans-and-maroon-shirt figure in the images released the next evening (Black-Clad Rooftop Suspect Dropped From the Narrative, Black Clothing Suspect).

  • Same window — Multiple 911 callers report an armed man in a black shirt, black mask, with a long rifle near the Fulton Library, on the north-side route away from the Losee Center (Eyewitness and Mobile Video).

  • 12:24–12:35 PM MDT — The SUV carrying Charlie Kirk departs for Timpanogos Regional Hospital, arriving in an estimated 12:29–12:35 PM window. Whether a nearer Level II trauma center was passed over is a separate dispute — was a nearer trauma center bypassed?. The medical clock from that point forward is on Death Timeline — Shot to Pronouncement and Timpanogos Regional Hospital.

  • Disputed — venue 911 / TPUSA calls — Whether a 911 call was ever placed from the venue for the victim is contested: see The 911 Call That Reportedly Never Came. Citizen posts (e.g. @tln6801) claim released call sets show no 911 call originating with TPUSA; others (@BSworldview) note dispatch already tracked the hospital run in a chaotic multi-call environment and that notification lag is not proof of malice. Keep both as attributed.

12:30 PM – 2:00 PM MDT — Lockdown and the first detention​

  • Minutes after the shot — George Hodgson Zinn, then 71, is taken into custody at the scene after, per the Utah County Sheriff's Office, shouting words to the effect of "I shot him, now shoot me" while officers were still trying to locate the shooter. Campus officers later testified (July 2026 prelim coverage) that they heard radio traffic of a suspect in custody almost immediately — a false-positive channel echo tied to the Zinn detention, not a confirmed shooter capture. He was cleared as the shooter the same day by Utah DPS Commissioner Beau Mason, and later told police he made the claim to draw attention away from the real shooter (George Zinn, Utah DPS and Commissioner Beau Mason, distraction events timeline).

  • Early afternoon — Campus goes to lockdown; the perimeter stays closed long enough that Candace Owens later publicly asked how one crowd figure was already being interviewed by national networks in Salt Lake City "while the campus was still on lockdown" (UVU Institutional Response, Orem PD and Local Response).

  • Afternoon — Fulton abandoned items — Officers recover a backpack, jacket, gloves and other abandoned items along the alleged escape route near the Fulton Library — the same area the 911 callers described. Sgt. Jennifer Faumuina of UVU Public Safety later testified the items went to the FBI for DNA and then testing was stopped; asked who made that call, she said she could not remember. Prelims-era summaries circulating online further claim the items were later linked to Kirk security detail before testing halted — still an attributed hearing synthesis, not a full public lab report (Standard Forensic Tests Reportedly Skipped, Post-Shot Escape Timeline, discovery / Brady timeline).

  • Afternoon — "Bags" on the roof (scanner vs testimony) — Scanner analysts (e.g. @PnutGalaree) identify UVU Officer Chris Bagley as radio callsign "Bags." On archived traffic he is said to report a rooftop imprint on Losee Center; the same analysts argue he does not report a screwdriver or spent casing on air when asked, and that a dispatch call he later testified he made about a person on the Losee roof is absent from the circulated archives. Attribute the radio-vs-testimony discrepancy carefully; Bagley is a living person — this is not a site finding of perjury (Bagley bodycam gap).

  • Afternoon — A second scene detention: Zachariah Qureshi, 25, of Provo — a returned missionary who attended as a supporter, per DPS/NewsNation profiles — is taken into custody. Family described mistaken detention. FBI Director Kash Patel publicly signals a suspect is in hand — and roughly 90 minutes later Qureshi is released with no public explanation of a shooter case. Fox and others named Zinn and Qureshi as ruled out the same night. Researchers argue the premature announcement may have paused the field search; no public CAD log has confirmed a stand-down. Radio claims ≠ guilt; Qureshi was never charged as the shooter (Zachariah Qureshi Arrest, Zachariah Qureshi — Detained and Released, Kash Patel Manhunt Timeline).

Afternoon–evening — The hospital-car chase on the scanner​

The most quoted stretch of archived Utah scanner audio is a running vehicle hunt that never resolved. The narration below is a citizen researcher's characterization of clips they published, with quoted fragments as they transcribed them.

  • Broadcast claim — "There's a guy with a long gun going from hospital to hospital looking for Charlie Kirk." Baron Coleman / @whokilledck summarize the same stretch as naming Zachariah Qureshi as a person of interest in tactical gear / black mask "going hospital to hospital looking for the victim." Two names circulate on the channel in citizen transcriptions: Zachariah, said to be in a red vehicle, and Andrew, said to be in a green Nissan Armada and referred to on air as the "one-armed bandit." Qureshi was detained, released, and never charged as the shooter.

  • Denial from the hospital — Officers relay that Provo checked with the hospital and were told none of it happened — no armed man, no confrontation, no run to a red car. "Is this confirmed? Because Provo went to Provo Hospital and said no such thing." The hunt continues anyway.

  • Vehicle churn — Over the next hours the target vehicle changes color, make and model: red, black, green, Toyota, Nissan. "I do think we're looking for an Armada, but we're not 100%." A Toyota 4Runner is spotted parked beside an FBI vehicle; an officer asks for the plate and the answer never comes back on tape (Rental Cars and Vehicle Movements).

  • The plate that does not exist — One suspect vehicle is described with a temporary tag or paper taped over the plate; when the numbers are finally run, dispatch returns "no historical, nothing at all ever… no records found." Researchers matching the string Y055RY to a UK format found a 2005 Volkswagen Golf GTI listed as off-road in Britain — an unexplained artifact, not a finding.

  • Preservation orders on social media — On air, officers and officers' spouses discuss watching a subject deleting Facebook posts in real time: "Hey, Dallin, you want to take two seconds and put a preservation order on that Facebook account, just in case it's related?"

  • The Armada turns out to be the FBI — Surveilling officers report a green Nissan Armada pulling into the very driveway they are watching. It is federal. "I'm being told Armada is FBI." Dispatch then states: "Official confirmation is the one-armed individual is not involved, so we will not be pursuing that" (Andrew Piskadlo).

  • The black truck — A separate vehicle, "a big black truck with tinted windows" with two bearded occupants and apparent police equipment, sits in the target driveway; when an officer moves to get the plate the truck departs, prompting the on-air remark that "they're on the same radio as them." No plate is ever read out.

  • Field frustration — Line officers can be heard sounding lost and sarcastic about federal coordination: "Oh wow, FBI is doing a real fabulous job at this."

Evening Sept 10 – Sept 11 — Where the radio and the podium diverge​

Conflicts and Disputed Points​

PointWhat the radio carriedWhat was said publicly later
Suspect descriptionMale in all black, black mask, described with tactical helmet, long gunYoung man in a long-sleeve black shirt and jeans with a backpack, per released stills
Hospital gunmanRepeated broadcasts about an armed man going hospital to hospitalProvo checked and the hospital said "no such thing" — the hunt continued regardless
Suspect vehicleRed car, then green Nissan Armada, then possibly a Toyota 4RunnerThe Armada was ultimately identified on air as an FBI vehicle
First detaineeZinn taken at the scene; radio "suspect in custody" almost immediatelyCleared as the shooter the same day; obstruction resolution later; radio echo fed campus false-positive confusion
Second detaineeQureshi named on hospital-chase stretch (Coleman/@whokilledck); publicly signaled "in custody"Released ~90 minutes later; Fox named him ruled out same night; never charged as shooter
Bags / Bagley roof trafficImprint reported; analysts say no screwdriver/casing on air and no archived call matching later testimonyBodycam battery / screwdriver appear in prelim testimony and evidence photos
Manhunt length—"33 hours" per federal and county statements; ~30 hours if the 6:25 PM Miranda time is the capture point
Time of first report12:26 PM per police audioPublic narrative treats the response as immediate

Open Questions​

  1. Will any agency release the complete, unedited, timestamped dispatch and CAD logs for September 10 rather than clips circulated by third parties (Broadcastify / YouTube packages)?
  2. What is the exact wording and time of the first broadcast suspect description (including whether "long hair" / tactical glasses were on the official channel), and who supplied it to dispatch?
  3. How many 911 calls described an armed man near the Fulton Library, and were those callers ever formally interviewed? Do released sets include any TPUSA-originated help call?
  4. Who told dispatch that an armed man went hospital to hospital, given that the hospital denied it — and was that source ever identified? Was Qureshi named on the primary channel or only in secondary narration?
  5. Who ordered DNA testing stopped on the backpack, jacket and gloves recovered on the escape route, and were those items later ID'd as security-detail property on the record?
  6. Did the public announcement that a suspect was in custody, followed by release ~90 minutes later, cause field units to stand down during that window?
  7. Does the full channel archive contain callsign "Bags" traffic matching Bagley's prelim testimony about a Losee-roof sighting and the screwdriver?

Laws (Charlie Kirk)​

The full unedited CAD incident log and radio recordings for every Utah channel active on September 10, 2025, the raw 911 call audio and call-taker notes for every caller who described an armed man near the Fulton Library, the source of the "hospital to hospital" broadcast and the record of who relayed it, the license-plate-reader and Flock returns for every vehicle discussed on air, the internal record of who authorized halting DNA testing on the recovered backpack, jacket and gloves, and the timeline of who inside the FBI approved the public "suspect in custody" statement later reversed are things the Charlie Kirk Investigation Laws may result in powerful truths coming out that aren't out yet.