Utah (KAAB TV) – U.S. investigators said on Thursday they had found the bolt-action rifle they believed was used to kill the influential conservative activist Charlie Kirk as he gave a talk at a university in Utah, but were still searching for the shooter.
Kirk, a 31-year-old podcast-radio commentator and a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, is credited with helping build the Republican Party’s support among younger voters. He was killed on Wednesday by a single gunshot in what Trump called a “heinous assassination.”
The killing, captured in graphic detail in videos that rapidly spread around the internet, occurred as Kirk spoke onstage at an outdoor event called “Prove Me Wrong” in front of about 3,000 people at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, about 40 miles (65 km) south of Salt Lake City.
The killer arrived on campus a few minutes before the event began, and could be seen on security-camera video ascending stairwells to get onto a nearby roof before firing at Kirk, according to the FBI and state officials.
Kirk, a staunch defender of gun rights, was answering an audience question about mass shootings when the bullet struck his neck; screaming 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.
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, and while investigators said they had “good video footage,” they would not make that public for now.
Kirk, co-founder and president of the conservative student group Turning Point USA, was pronounced dead at a local hospital hours later. His killing stirred immediate expressions of outrage and denunciations of political violence from Democrats, Republicans and foreign governments.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox said Kirk’s events on college campuses were part of a tradition of open political debate that was “foundational to the formation of our country, to our most basic constitutional rights.”
“When someone takes the life of a person because of their ideas or their ideals, then that very constitutional foundation is threatened,” Cox said.
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.