US right-wing activist and Donald Trump ally Charlie Kirk was shot dead in the neck on Wednesday during a university event in Utah, which the governor called a political assassination.
Authorities had yet to publicly identify a suspect some six hours after the shooting. No suspect was in custody, US media reported, citing law enforcement sources.
FBI Director Kash Patel said an unnamed person had been detained for questioning, then released.
“Our investigation continues,” he wrote on social media.
Governor Spencer Cox had said at an earlier press conference that police were interviewing a “person of interest” but gave no details about the person’s identity or how the individual was believed to be connected with the shooting. At the same press conference, Beau Mason, the Utah Department of Public Safety commissioner, said the perpetrator suspected of firing the single shot that killed Kirk, 31, remained “at large”.
Trump Vows To Find Suspect
In a video message taped in the Oval Office and posted to his Truth Social online platform, Trump vowed that his administration would locate the suspect.
“My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it,” Trump said.
Cellphone video clips of the killing posted online showed Kirk addressing a large outdoor crowd at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, around 12:20 p.m. MT (1620 GMT), when a gunshot rang out. Kirk moved his hand toward his neck as he fell off his chair, sending the attendees running.
In another clip, blood could be seen gushing from Kirk’s neck immediately after the shot.
The suspect likely fired from a rooftop at a significant distance, authorities said, adding that there were about 3,000 people attending the event. Jeff Long, chief of the university police department, said that he had six officers working the event, and that he coordinated with the head of Kirk’s private security team, which was also on site.
Trump ordered all government US flags flown at half-staff until Sunday in Kirk’s honour.
‘Dark Day’
“This is a dark day for our state, it’s a tragic day for our nation,” Cox said at the press conference. “I want to be very clear that this is a political assassination.”
Trump, who routinely describes political rivals, judges and others who stand in his way as “radical left lunatics” and warns that they pose an existential threat to the nation, decried violent political rhetoric.
“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” Trump said in the video. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
An attempt at a moment of silence for Kirk in the US House of Representatives degenerated into shouting and finger-pointing.
Kirk’s appearance on Wednesday was the first in a planned 15-event “American Comeback Tour” at universities around the country. He often used such events, which typically drew large crowds of students, to invite attendees to debate him live.
Asked About Shootings, Then Shot
Seconds before he was shot, Kirk was being questioned by an audience member about gun violence, according to multiple videos of the event posted online.
“Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America in the last 10 years?” Kirk was asked.
He responded, “Counting or not counting gang violence?” He was shot moments later.
Kirk and the group he co-founded, Turning Point USA, the largest conservative youth organisation in the country, played a key role in driving young voter support for Trump in November.
After winning his second presidential term, Trump credited Kirk for mobilising younger voters and voters of color in support of his campaign.
“You had Turning Point’s grassroots armies,” Trump said at a rally in Phoenix in December. “It’s not my victory, it’s your victory.”
At the White House, staff members, many of them young and admirers of Kirk, were ashen-faced as news of the shooting spread. Kirk was married and had two young children.
Political Violence On The Rise
While the motive for the shooting is unknown, the United States is undergoing its most sustained period of political violence since the 1970s. Reuters has documented more than 300 cases of politically motivated violent acts since supporters of Trump attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In July 2024, Republican Trump was grazed by a gunman’s bullet during a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania. A second assassination attempt two months later was foiled by federal agents.
In April, an arsonist broke into Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence and set it on fire while the family was inside.
Earlier this year, a gunman posing as a police officer in Minnesota murdered Democratic state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and shot Democratic Senator John Hoffman and his wife. And in Boulder, Colorado, a man used a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to attack a solidarity event for Israeli hostages, killing one woman and injuring at least six more.
In 2022, a man broke into Democratic then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer, leaving him with skull fractures and other injuries. In 2020, a group of right-wing militia members plotted unsuccessfully to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.
Republican and Democratic politicians alike expressed dismay over the shooting.
“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,” Vice President JD Vance, who was close to Kirk, wrote on X.
“I am shocked by the murder of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University,” Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement. “Political violence of any kind and against any individual is unacceptable and completely incompatible with American values. We pray for his family during this tragedy.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
