Activist and Trump ally Charlie Kirk assassinated at Utah university

Charlie Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Trump, was shot and killed on Wednesday at a college event in what the state governor called a political assassination carried out from a rooftop.

“This is a dark day for our state. It’s a tragic day for our nation,” said Utah Governor Spencer Cox.

“I want to be very clear, this is a political assassination.”

No suspect was in custody late on Wednesday, though authorities were searching for a new person of interest, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Two people were detained earlier in the day, but neither was determined to have had any connection to the shooting and both have been released, Utah public safety officials said.

Authorities did not immediately identify a motive but the circumstances of the shooting drew renewed attention to an escalating threat of political violence in the United States that in the last several years has cut across the ideological spectrum.

The assassination drew bipartisan condemnation, but a national reckoning over ways to prevent political grievances from manifesting as deadly violence seemed elusive.

Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University show Mr Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans The American Comeback and Prove Me Wrong.

A single shot rings out and Mr Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as a large volume of blood gushes from the left side of his neck.

Stunned spectators are heard gasping and screaming before people start to run away.

Mr Kirk was speaking at a debate hosted by his nonprofit political organisation.

Immediately before the shooting, Mr Kirk was taking questions from an audience member about mass shootings and gun violence.

“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” the person asked.

Mr Kirk responded: “Too many.”

The questioner followed up: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”

“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Mr Kirk asked.

Then a single shot rang out.

The assailant, who Mr Cox pledged would be held accountable in a state with the death penalty, wore dark clothing and fired from a building roof some distance away to the courtyard where the event took place.

Some 3,000 people were in attendance, according to a statement from the Utah Department of Public Safety, which also said the university police department had six officers working at the event along with Mr Kirk’s own security detail.

The death was announced on social media by Mr Trump, who praised the 31-year-old Mr Kirk, the co-founder and chief executive of the youth organisation Turning Point USA, as “Great, and even Legendary.”

Later on Wednesday, he released a recorded video from the White House in which he called Mr Kirk a “martyr for truth and freedom” and blamed the rhetoric of the “radical left” for the killing.

Utah Valley University said the campus was immediately evacuated and remained closed.

Classes were cancelled until further notice.

Those still on campus were asked to stay in place until police officers could safely escort them off campus.

Armed officers walked around the neighbourhood bordering the campus, knocking on doors and asking for information on the assailant.

Officers were seen looking at a photo on their phones and showing it to people to see if they recognised a person of interest.

The event, billed as the first stop on Mr Kirk’s The American Comeback Tour, had generated a polarising campus reaction.

An online petition calling for university administrators to bar Mr Kirk from appearing received nearly 1,000 signatures.

The university issued a statement last week citing First Amendment rights and affirming its “commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue”.

The shooting drew swift condemnation across the political aisle as Democratic officials joined Mr Trump, who ordered flags lowered to half-mast and issued a presidential proclamation, and Republican allies of Mr Kirk in decrying the violence.

“The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible,” Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom, who last March hosted Mr Kirk on his podcast, posted on X.

The shooting appeared poised to become part of a spike of political violence that has touched a range of ideologies and representatives of both major parties.

The attacks include the assassination of a Minnesota state politician and her husband at their house in June, the firebombing of a Colorado parade to demand Hamas release hostages, and a fire set at the house of Pennsylvania’s governor, who is Jewish, in April.

The most notorious of these events is the shooting of Mr Trump during a campaign rally last year