Charlie Kirk Utah Valley
Renowned conservative activist and staunch ally of President Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk was assassinated on Wednesday at an event at Utah Valley University.
Videos of the incident showed Kirk speaking to a large outdoor crowd when a loud crack, followed by a gunshot, rang out.
The 31-year-old briefly clutched his neck after being shot before collapsing from his chair, sending attendees of the event fleeing.
Kirk was participating in an event at the Orem, Utah, school as part of his organization’s “The American Comeback Tour” when he was shot dead.
In a statement after the incident, President Trump blamed Kirk’s shooting on “radical left political violence, ” saying it “has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”
“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.
“This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
The F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, in a social media post late Wednesday, said the agency has launched an investigation into the shooting incident.
“Our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in the interest of transparency,” Patel wrote.
Two individuals initially considered suspects in the activist’s shooting were arrested but later released after the Utah Department of Public Safety confirmed they had “no current ties to the shooting.”
One of them was charged with obstructing university police, as previously disclosed during a news conference. However, the department did not explain why either person was originally treated as a suspect.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement on X, said Kirk “was murdered for speaking the truth and defending freedom,” praising the activist as a “lion-hearted friend of Israel.”
“Charlie Kirk was murdered for speaking truth and defending freedom. A lion-hearted friend of Israel, he fought the lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization. I spoke to him only two weeks ago and invited him to Israel. Sadly, that visit will not take place,” he stated.
