US authorities release photos in hunt for killer of Charlie Kirk

Robert Bohls, the FBI special agent in charge said that the shooter jumped off the roof and fled into an adjoining neighborhood.

Orem, Utah: US investigators said on Thursday they had found the bolt-action rifle they believed was used to kill the influential conservative activist Charlie Kirk and released images of a person of interest as they searched for the shooter they described as college age.

Kirk, a 31-year-old author, podcast host and close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, helped build the Republican Party's support among younger voters. He was killed on Wednesday by a single gunshot as he gave a talk at a university in Utah in what Trump called a "heinous assassination."

FBI and state officials said the killer arrived on the campus a few minutes before the event began, a debate led by Kirk titled "Prove Me Wrong" outdoors in front of about 3,000 people at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, about 40 miles (65 km) south of Salt Lake City.

Security-camera videos show a person going up stairwells to get onto a roof before firing at Kirk, the officials told a press conference. Kirk, a staunch defender of gun rights, was answering an audience question about mass shootings when the bullet struck his neck. Audience members fled in panic.

The shooter jumped off the roof and fled into an adjoining neighborhood, Robert Bohls, the FBI special agent in charge, told reporters.

Investigators found a "high-powered, bolt-action" rifle in a nearby wooded area, and were examining that along with palm prints and footprints for clues. On Thursday, with classes canceled, the roof of the building on the otherwise deserted campus and the nearby woods were strung with yellow tape as investigators scoured them for evidence.

The shooter appears to be of college age and "blended in well" on the campus, Utah Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason told reporters.

The shooter has not been publicly identified, but the FBI circulated grainy images apparently taken from security cameras showing a "person of interest" wearing a black top, black sunglasses and a dark baseball cap. The top appears to have an image of a bald eagle flying across a U.S. flag.

Trump to award Kirk top honour

Ammunition found so far appeared to have been engraved with messages, the Wall Street Journal reported, but people familiar with the investigation told Reuters the engravings and their meaning were still being analyzed.

Kirk was co-founder and president of the conservative student group Turning Point USA and his appearance on Wednesday was part of a planned 15-event "American Comeback Tour" of U.S. college campuses. His killing stirred outrage and denunciations of political violence from Democrats, Republicans and foreign governments.

Trump said on Thursday he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Vice President JD Vance canceled his trip to New York to commemorate the attacks by al Qaeda on September 11, 2001, and instead will travel to Utah to visit Kirk's family, a person familiar with the situation said.

Kirk began his career in conservative and right-wing politics as a teenager. A little more than a decade later, some of the friends he made along the way are now at the highest levels of U.S. government and media, with Vance recalling that he was in multiple group chats with Kirk.

"So much of the success we've had in this administration traces directly to Charlie's ability to organize and convene," Vance wrote in a lengthy tribute posted on social media. "He didn't just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government."

Era of political violence

The shooting punctuated the most sustained period of U.S. political violence since the 1970s. Reuters has documented more than 300 cases of politically motivated violent acts across the ideological spectrum since supporters of Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump himself has survived two attempts on his life, one that left him with a grazed ear during a campaign event in July 2024 and another two months later foiled by federal agents.

Two people were detained, questioned and released on Wednesday evening, but neither were a suspect, the FBI said on Thursday.

One of the two detainees, an older man seen in photos that circulated online shortly after the killing, was familiar to locals as a political "gadfly," according to the Salt Lake Tribune. Officials said he had been charged with obstruction by university police and released.

Kirk, who was married and the father of two young children, published his most recent book last year calling for a "Right Wing Revolution" and had just returned from an overseas speaking tour in South Korea and Japan.

Known for his provocative discourse on race, gender, immigration and gun regulation, Kirk often used such events to invite members of the crowd to debate him live, and was frequently challenged and criticized by people from the far left to the far right.

"He would go into these hostile crowds and answer their questions," Vance wrote in his tribute. "If it was a friendly crowd, and a progressive asked a question to jeers from the audience, he'd encourage his fans to calm down and let everyone speak."

In a video message taped in the Oval Office, Trump vowed to track down those responsible for Kirk's killing, along with "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, who routinely describes political rivals, judges and others who stand in his way as "radical left lunatics" who pose an existential threat to the nation, also decried violent political rhetoric, while casting it as a phenomenon of the political left.

"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."