The United States researchers said Thursday that they had found the Bolt-Action Rifle that they believed was used to kill the influential conservative activist Charlie Kirk while giving a talk at a university in Utah, but I was still looking for the shooter.
Kirk, an influential ally from President Donald Trump, was shot dead on Wednesday while talking at the University of Utah, causing a human hunt for a solitary sniper that the governor said he had carried out a political murder.
The authorities said they still had no suspect in custody until Wednesday night, about eight hours after noon shooting at the Utah Valley University campus in OREM, Utah, during an event attended by 3,000 people.
The cell phone videos of the murder published online showed Kirk addressing a large outdoor crowd on the campus, about 64 kilometers south of Salt Lake City, around 12:20 pm MT (18:20 GMT or 23:20 pkt), when a shot sounded.
Kirk, a firm defender of weapons rights, was answering a audience question about mass shootings when the bullet hit his neck; The members of the audience shouting fled in panic.
The lonely author suspected of shooting the unique shot that killed Kirk, 31, apparently of a sniper nest of the distant roof on the campus, remained “in general,” said Beau Mason, commissioner of the UTAH Public Security Department, at a press conference four hours later.
Meanwhile, Robert Bohls, the special FBI agent in charge, told journalists: “The shooter jumped out of the ceiling and fled to an adjoining neighborhood.”
The researchers found a high -power “bolt action” rifle in a nearby wooded area and examined it together with palm footprints and fingerprints to obtain clues.
The shooter seems to be of the university age and “mixed in the well” on the campus, Mason added. The shooter has not been publicly identified, and although the researchers said they had “good video images”, they would not do it public for now.
The State Police issued a statement on Wednesday night saying that two men had been arrested and that one was interrogated by the police, but that both were subsequently released.
“There are no current links with the shooting with any of these individuals,” said the statement. “There is an ongoing investigation and a human hunt for the shooter.”
Trump said today that he would grant Kirk the presidential medal of La Libertad, the highest civil honor of the Nation, making the comments during a ceremony in the Pentagon that commemorates the attacks of September 11.
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance canceled his trip to New York to commemorate Al Qaeda attacks on September 11, 2001, and in his place he will travel to Utah to visit Kirk’s family, a person familiar with the situation said.
“Much of the success we have had in this administration directly draws Charlie’s ability to organize and convene,” Vance wrote in a long tribute published on social networks. “Not only did it help us win in 2024, but it helped us personnel from all over the government.”
In a video message recorded in the Oval office and published on Trump’s social social social line, the president promised that his administration would track the suspect.
“My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and another political violence, including organizations that finance and support it,” Trump said.
Jeff Long, head of the University Police Department, said he had six officers working at the event and coordinated with the head of the Kirk private security team, who was also on the site. Trump ordered the American flags flying in the middle of the staff until Sunday in honor of Kirk.
The murder was the last of a series of attacks against US political figures, including two trump murder attempts last year, which have underlined a strong increase in political violence.
“This is a dark day for our state, it is a tragic day for our nation,” said Utah Republican governor Spencer Cox, at the press conference. “I want to be very clear that this is a political murder.”
With the suspect even in general, there was no clear evidence of a reason for the act of violence.
Trump, who routinely describes political rivals, judges and others who get in his way as “radical left lunatics” and warns that they represent an existential threat to the nation, denounced the violent political rhetoric.
“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie with the Nazis and the worst murderers and mass criminals of the world,” Trump said in the video. “This type of rhetoric is directly responsible for terrorism that we are seeing in our country today, and must stop at this time.”
In Capitol Hill in Washington, an attempt to observe a moment of silence for Kirk on the floor of the United States representatives degenerated to shout and point out with the finger.
Kirk’s appearance on Wednesday was the first in a “American return tour” planned in universities throughout the country. He often used such events, which generally attracted large crowds of students, to invite attendees to discuss it live.
Recorded ammunition
The Wall Street Journal He informed today that the researchers found ammunition recorded with expressions of transgender and anti -fascist ideology within the rifle that the authorities believe that it was used to shoot Kirk, according to an internal bulletin of application of the law and a person familiar with the investigation.
The oldest model of caliber hunting rifle was discovered in the forest near the shooting scene, wrapped in a towel with a cartridge still spent on the camera, the fountains said. There were also three rounds not spent in the magazine, all with writing on them.
Asked about shootings, then shot
Seconds before he was shot, the member of the Audience of Father Casado was questioned by a member of the audience on armed violence, according to multiple videos of the event published online.
“Do you know how many mass shooters have been in the United States in the last 10 years?” Kirk was asked.
He replied: “Counting or not counting gang violence?” They shot him moments later.
Kirk and the group that co -founded, Turning Point USA, the largest conservative youth organization in the country, played a key role in promoting the support of young voters for Trump in November.
After winning his second presidential mandate, Trump accredited Kirk for mobilizing the younger voters and color voters in support of his campaign.
“You had Turning Point Base armies,” Trump said in a demonstration in Phoenix in December. “It’s not my victory, it’s your victory.”
Kirk had 5.3 million followers in X and organized a popular Podcast and Radio program, ‘The Charlie Kirk Show’. He had also recently appeared as a guest coanfrerion in Fox News” Fox & Friends’. He was part of an ecosystem of conservative influences Pro-Trump, including Jack Posobiec, Laura Loomer, Candace Owens and others, which helped amplify the president’s agenda.
Kirk frequently attacked the main media and dedicated himself to problems of cultural war on race, gender and immigration, often in a provocative style.
In the White House, the staff members, many of them young and fans of Kirk, had their censo face as the news of the shooting extended.
Increasing political violence
Republican and democratic politicians expressed their dismay for the shooting.
The leader of the democratic chamber minority, Hakeem Jeffries, said in a statement: “The political violence of any kind and against any individual is unacceptable and completely incompatible with US values. We pray for his family during this tragedy.”
The United States is experiencing its most sustained political violence since the 1970s. Reuters He has documented more than 300 cases of politically motivated violent acts since Trump’s supporters attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In July 2024, Trump was grazing for a gunman’s bullet during a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania. A second murder attempt two months later was frustrated by federal agents, with opening arguments in that suspect trial that will begin on Thursday.
In April, a incendiary broke into the Democratic residence of the governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, and set it on fire while the family was inside.
Earlier this year, an armed man who passed a police officer in Minnesota murdered the state legislator of Democratic Melissa Hortman and her husband and shot the Democratic Senator John Hoffman and his wife. And in Boulder, Colorado, a man used an improvised call and Molotov cocktails to attack a solidarity event for Israeli hostages, killing a woman and wounding at least six more.
In 2022, a man broke into the Democratic house of the then house of the Nancy Pelosi house and hit her husband with a hammer, leaving him with skull fractures and other injuries.
In 2020, a group of members of the right -wing militia dasted unsuccessfully to kidnap Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.
