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New video of Kirk suspect released
US officials have issued an urgent appeal for help from the public as they continue to search for the shooter of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, releasing new videos and photos from the scene of the attack in Utah.
More than 24 hours after Kirk was shot while speaking in front of thousands of people at a Utah university, the state’s governor, appearing alongside FBI director Kash Patel and other officials, said “we need as much help as we can possibly get.”
“We cannot do our job without the public’s help,” Utah’s governor, Spencer Cox said, adding that the FBI had received more than 7,000 leads and tips so far.
The newly released video showed a person wearing a hat, sunglasses and a long sleeve black shirt running across a roof, climbing off the edge of the building and dropping to the ground. The suspect is believed to have fled into the local neighbourhood after firing the one shot and has not yet been identified.
Investigators said they had obtained clues, including a palm print, a shoe impression and a high-powered hunting rifle found in a wooded area along the path the shooter fled. But they were yet to name a suspect or cite a motive in the killing.
The direct appeals for public support at the night-time news conference, appeared to signal law enforcement’s continued struggles to identify the shooter and pinpoint the person’s whereabouts. Authorities didn’t take questions, and Patel did not speak at the news conference. The FBI is offering up to $100,000 for information leading to the identification and arrest of the person.
The death of Kirk – a close ally of President Donald Trump – has drawn renewed attention to the escalating threat of political violence in the United States which, in the last several years, has cut across the ideological spectrum. The assassination drew bipartisan condemnation from political leaders.
In appealing for information, Cox said on Thursday, “there is a tremendous amount of disinformation” online.
“Our adversaries want violence,” Cox said. “We have bots from Russia, China, all over the world that are trying to instil disinformation and encourage violence. I would encourage you to ignore those, to turn off those streams.”
Cox also pledged to find the killer and pursue the death penalty.
We will bring you the latest developments on this story throughout the day.
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Virulent debater and clickbait savant: how Charlie Kirk pushed a new generation to the right
Alaina Demopoulos
After clinching the title of top conservative podcast in America (and second overall news podcast, according to Apple’s ranking) in March, Charlie Kirk said: “We’re not just talking. We’re activating a revolution.”
In the hours after his killing at age 31 on the first stop of a buzzy college campus tour, the rightwing activist’s words echoed through young conservative circles. Social media eulogies rolled in, with users reposting clips of Kirk with his wife and children. Parents of teens wrote on X of learning about Kirk’s death through their children. “My 17 year old is bumming. Told me he plays Charlie in the background on his computer when he’s on it,” the conservative radio host Jesse Kelly wrote on X. Another X user wrote about speaking to teens at a church youth group: “Everyone I talked to is so distraught and heartbroken at his passing.”
A key figure in Donald Trump’s success, Kirk galvanized college-aged conservatives who moved in a different ecosystem from traditional media. The decade or so between Kirk’s beginnings as a teen activist and the shooting saw the rise of Maga politics alongside the shake-up of the conventional media landscape, with Kirk playing a crucial role in both.
You can read the full report here:
Here are some images coming to us via the wires.
The Guardian view on the killing of Charlie Kirk: a perilous moment that may lead to more
Democracy is the way that we have diverse societies that don’t kill each other, largely,” Lilliana Mason, a leading scholar of partisanship, observed recently. She added: “As soon as we stop believing in it, it disappears.” Dr Mason’s own research suggests that there is sharply rising tolerance of political violence. On Wednesday, it claimed one more victim.
The shocking killing of the co-founder of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk, a hugely influential activist who rallied young people to Donald Trump’s cause and far-right ideology more broadly, has been widely and rightly condemned across the political spectrum. Leading Democrats and progressive activists made clear that such violence must not be tolerated.
Before a perpetrator had even been identified, the president, like several other Republicans, blamed “radical left political violence”, claiming that liberal rhetoric against conservatives was “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country”. Mr Trump himself faced two attempts on his life last year. He cited other victims, but not the many Democrats who have been targeted, including Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota state representative shot dead at her home alongside her husband, Mark, in June. Meanwhile, some far-right commentators spoke of vengeance.
Political violence is hardly a new phenomenon in a country that has seen a civil war, four presidential assassinations, and lynchings. But it is rising again. Ordinary Americans are being radicalised. In such an environment, one thing unites the political poles; any prominent figure is vulnerable, though women and people of colour are particularly targeted. Threats to members of Congress rocketed last year.
Read the full piece here:
A quiet Utah town reckons with Charlie Kirk’s shooting: ‘Nothing like this has happened here’
Orem, Utah, a sleepy suburb of roughly 100,000 people at the feet of the Wasatch mountains, never asked for the national spotlight, writes Cy Neff.
But in the wake of the killing of far-right activist Charlie Kirk in front of a packed audience at a university in the heart of town, the weight of the nation’s gaze was inescapable. A forest of American flags planted atop a highway interpass next to Utah Valley University (UVU), where Kirk was shot. A campus on lockdown and makeshift memorials. The ubiquitous presence of local cops and FBI agents.
With the shock of Kirk’s death fresh and a manhunt for the shooter still under way, many in the community are coming to terms with the magnitude of what happened here, and are split on the legacy Kirk leaves behind.
“I’m sad and just shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened in Utah, to this extent,” said Brice Nokes, 27. On Thursday, Nokes was standing at the UVU campus entrance holding a sign that said “I believe in you” in bold capital letters. He took it to the university’s entrance today, hoping to help spread positivity in the wake of the killing.
Tanner Lundquist, 31, and a former UVU student who came back to campus on Thursday, said that his community was “not meant to be on the world stage”.
“For me it’s very disturbing to see a courtyard where I used to do homework on CNN, on Fox News,” Lundquist said.
Read the full report here:
Charlie Kirk in his own words: ‘prowling Blacks’ and ‘the great replacement strategy’
Charlie Kirk, the far-right commentator and ally of Donald Trump, was killed on Wednesday doing what he was known for throughout his career – making incendiary and often racist and sexist comments to large audiences, writes Chris Stein and Dani Anguiano.
If it was current and controversial in US politics, chances are that Kirk was talking about it. On his podcasts, and on the podcasts of friends and adversaries, and especially on college campuses, where he would go to debate students, Kirk spent much of his adult life defending and articulating a worldview aligned with Trump and the Maga movement. Accountable to no one but his audience, he did not shy away in his rhetoric from bigotry, intolerance, exclusion and stereotyping.
Here’s Kirk, in his own words. Many of his comments were documented by Media Matters for America, a progressive non-profit that tracks conservative media.
On race
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
On debate
We record all of it so that we put [it] on the internet so people can see these ideas collide. When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence. That’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, and they lose their humanity.
– Kirk discussing his work in an undated clip that circulated on X after his killing.
On gender, feminism and reproductive rights
Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.
– Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement on The Charlie Kirk Show, 26 August 2025
Read the full report here:
What we know so far
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US officials have appealed for help from the public for information to help find the shooter, releasing new videos and photos from the scene of the attack at a Utah university.
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“We need as much help as we can possibly get,” Utah governor Spencer Cox told a news conference more than 24 hours after Kirk was shot while speaking in front of thousands of people. “We cannot do our job without the public’s help,” Cox said, appearing alongside FBI director Kash Patel – who didn’t speak – and other officials. The FBI had received more than 7,000 leads and tips so far, he said.
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Surveillance video newly released by authorities showed a person wearing a hat, sunglasses and a long sleeve black shirt running across a roof, climbing off the edge of the building and dropping to the ground. The suspect is believed to have fled into the local neighbourhood after firing the one shot and has not yet been identified.
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Investigators said they had obtained clues, including a palm print, a shoe impression and a high-powered hunting rifle found in a wooded area along the path the shooter fled. But they were yet to name a suspect or cite a motive in the killing. The FBI is offering up to $100,000 for information leading to the identification and arrest of the person.
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Donald Trump agreed with a suggestion from a conservative reporter that his supporters should not respond to Kirk’s death with violence, a day after the president blamed the “radical left” for the killing and pledged a wide-ranging response. Trump said Kirk – a close ally – had been “an advocate of nonviolence” and “that’s the way I’d like to see people respond”. He cited “big progress” in the investigation.
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Cox pledged to pursue the death penalty once the killer was found, also saying there was “a tremendous amount of disinformation” online.
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Kirk’s casket arrived in his home state of Arizona aboard Air Force Two, accompanied by vice-president JD Vance. Vance’s wife, Usha, stepped off the plane with Kirk’s widow, Erika. Vance helped carry Kirk’s casket with a group of uniformed service members as it was loaded on to the plane.
Oxford Union condemns president-elect’s reported comments on Charlie Kirk shooting
Nadeem Badshah
The Oxford Union has “unequivocally” condemned comments apparently made by its president-elect about the fatal shooting of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk in the US.
Kirk, 31, was killed at a Utah Valley University show on Wednesday in what authorities have called a political assassination.
George Abaraonye, who became president-elect of the debating society after a vote in June, posted comments in a WhatsApp group after his death, according to the Daily Telegraph.
One message was reported to have said “Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s fucking go”, while another thought to have been posted on Abaraonye’s Instagram account read “Charlie Kirk got shot loool”.
In a statement on Thursday, the Oxford Union criticised the student’s comments and said it “firmly opposes all forms of political violence and strongly stands by our commitment to free speech and considerate debate”.
“The Oxford Union would like to unequivocally condemn the reported words and sentiments expressed by its president-elect, George Abaraonye, with regards to the passing of Charlie Kirk,” the society wrote on X. “His reported views do not represent the Oxford Union’s current leadership or committee’s view.
Read the full report here:
Our graphics team has put together this map showing where Charlie Kirk was shot, and the reported location of the shooter.
In addition to the video, Utah officials have released the county dispatch audio on the moment police were alerted to the shooting of Charlie Kirk on Wednesday.
Kirk was speaking at a Utah Valley University event in Orem.
Kirk’s casket arrived in his home state of Arizona aboard Air Force Two, accompanied by vice-president JD Vance. Vance’s wife, Usha, stepped off the plane with Kirk’s widow, Erika.
Vance helped carry Kirk’s casket with a group of uniformed service members as it was loaded on to the plane. Kirk’s conservative youth organisation, Turning Point USA, was based in Phoenix.
“So much of the success we’ve had in this administration traces directly to Charlie’s ability to organize and convene,” Vance wrote on social media, referencing Kirk’s role in getting Donald Trump elected last year. “He didn’t just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government.”
Trump, who said he would award the Medal of Freedom posthumously to Kirk, spoke to Kirk’s wife on Thursday.
He said that authorities were making “big progress” towards tracking down the suspect and that in regards to a motive, he has an “indication … but we’ll let you know about that later”.
New video of Kirk suspect released
US officials have issued an urgent appeal for help from the public as they continue to search for the shooter of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, releasing new videos and photos from the scene of the attack in Utah.
More than 24 hours after Kirk was shot while speaking in front of thousands of people at a Utah university, the state’s governor, appearing alongside FBI director Kash Patel and other officials, said “we need as much help as we can possibly get.”
“We cannot do our job without the public’s help,” Utah’s governor, Spencer Cox said, adding that the FBI had received more than 7,000 leads and tips so far.
The newly released video showed a person wearing a hat, sunglasses and a long sleeve black shirt running across a roof, climbing off the edge of the building and dropping to the ground. The suspect is believed to have fled into the local neighbourhood after firing the one shot and has not yet been identified.
Investigators said they had obtained clues, including a palm print, a shoe impression and a high-powered hunting rifle found in a wooded area along the path the shooter fled. But they were yet to name a suspect or cite a motive in the killing.
The direct appeals for public support at the night-time news conference, appeared to signal law enforcement’s continued struggles to identify the shooter and pinpoint the person’s whereabouts. Authorities didn’t take questions, and Patel did not speak at the news conference. The FBI is offering up to $100,000 for information leading to the identification and arrest of the person.
The death of Kirk – a close ally of President Donald Trump – has drawn renewed attention to the escalating threat of political violence in the United States which, in the last several years, has cut across the ideological spectrum. The assassination drew bipartisan condemnation from political leaders.
In appealing for information, Cox said on Thursday, “there is a tremendous amount of disinformation” online.
“Our adversaries want violence,” Cox said. “We have bots from Russia, China, all over the world that are trying to instil disinformation and encourage violence. I would encourage you to ignore those, to turn off those streams.”
Cox also pledged to find the killer and pursue the death penalty.
We will bring you the latest developments on this story throughout the day.
