Influential right-wing activist Charlie Kirk has died at age 31 after being shot in the neck by an assassin during a Utah college campus speaking event.
Now, the FBI is asking for the public’s help as they search for the suspected shooter, writing on X, “Submit tips regarding today’s shooting at Utah Valley University.”
Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Trump and the face of right-wing campus activism, was fatally shot while speaking to a crowd of Utah Valley University students – an attack that officials have labelled a “political assassination.”
He was roughly 20 minutes into a question-and-answer session in front of 3,000 people before the crack of a single loud rifle shot sent the crowd into panic.
The Turning Point USA founder began bleeding heavily from his neck before collapsing within seconds.
Trump later announced Kirk’s death in a Truth Social post.
“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” wrote Trump, who announced Kirk’s death before it was confirmed by his family, law enforcement or Turning Point USA.
“No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” Trump added. “He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us.”
He later said in an Oval Office address that he was “filled with grief and anger.”
“Charlie inspired millions, and tonight all who knew him and loved him are united in shock and horror.”
Trump blamed “those on the radical left” for comparing “wonderful Americans” like Kirk to “Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals.”
“This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
Kirk is survived by his wife, Erika Lane Frantzve, and their two young children.
Turning Point, the organization that Kirk founded as a teenager, confirmed his death on Wednesday evening.
“May he be received into the merciful arms of our loving Savior, who suffered and died for Charlie,” the group said.
The president ordered American flags lowered to half-staff until September 14.
Speaking next to law enforcement officials on Wednesday night, Utah governor Spencer Cox said a “person of interest in custody” is being interviewed by police. Moments earlier, FBI director Kash Patel said the person who “took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody.”
Later, Patel announced that the individual had been released after being interviewed by law enforcement.
“Our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in [the] interest of transparency,” he said.
A campus alert stated earlier that a suspect had been arrested.
The Utah Department of Public Safety said in a statement: “There are no current ties to the shooting” with the two people taken into police custody.
Kirk was addressing the crowd at a university in Orem, Utah, roughly 35 miles from Salt Lake City, from under a tent emblazoned with “American Comeback” in a courtyard next to a student center.
“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” one audience member asked.
“Too many,” Kirk replied.
The attendee followed up by asking whether Kirk knew how “many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years.”
“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk asked in response.
Kirk was “about 60 to 90 seconds” into his answer, “and that’s when the shot went off,” eyewitness Justin Hicken told The Independent in a phone interview Wednesday.
“I saw blood spurting from Charlie, his body kind of recoiled, everybody started screaming,” he said.
“People dropped to the floor, a whole bunch of bodies all over, just crazy stuff,” Hicken added. “As I was on the floor with bodies on top of me, I was listening, praying, that hopefully there are no more shots.”
The campus has been closed, classes have been canceled, and students and others on campus were instructed to leave the university “immediately,” according to a university announcement.
“You try to get your bases covered, and unfortunately, today, we didn’t,” campus police chief Jeff Long told reporters on Wednesday night. “Because of that, we have this tragic incident.”
Cox called the shooting a “political assassination” and Kirk’s death was a “dark day for our state” and “tragic day for our nation.”
“Nothing I can say can unite us as a country,” Cox said. “We just need every single person in this country to think about where we are and where we want to be ... ‘Is this it? is this what 250 years has brought upon us?’ I pray that’s not the case.”
Kirk, a prominent conservative activist and prolific media personality, was well known for his campus appearances and debates surrounding hot-button issues.
He formed the group in 2012 when he was 18 years old and emerged as an influential voice among Trump’s supporters with an audience on his social media channels and streaming video networks that reached millions of followers.
Kirk also developed a close relationship with the president and other prominent Republican figures and has helped shape Trump’s Cabinet while leading campaigns that mobilized thousands of Turning Point members in the weeks leading up to the 2024 election.
He had recently launched the American Comeback Tour with visits to college campuses across the country. Nearly 1,000 people signed a petition against his appearance at Utah Valley University, though school officials defended the event and “commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue.”
The university said it was “shocked and saddened” by Kirk’s death.
“We grieve with our students, faculty, and staff who bore witness to this unspeakable tragedy,” UVU said. “We firmly believe that UVU is a place to share ideas and to debate openly and respectfully. Any attempt to infringe on those rights has no place here.”
Trump, vice president JD Vance and a host of administration officials and allies urged Americans to pray for Kirk following news of the shooting.
Democratic officials also offered prayers for Kirk and his family and condemned acts of political violence.
Barack Obama, a frequent foil of Kirk’s, said he and former first lady Michelle Obama will pray for his wife and two young children.
“This kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy,” the former president wrote on X.
Wednesday’s shooting follows a streak of political violence across the country in recent months, including the assassinations of a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband in Minnesota in June and two attempted assassinations targeting Trump in 2024.
Gabrielle Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman who was targeted in a 2011 assassination attempt that nearly killed her, said she was “horrified” to hear news of the shooting.
“Democratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence,” she wrote Wednesday.
“There is no place in our country for this kind of violence,” former president Joe Biden wrote. “It must end now.”
Former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said she is “deeply disturbed” by news of the shooting.
“Let me be clear: Political violence has no place in America,” she wrote on social media. “I condemn this act, and we all must work together to ensure this does not lead to more violence.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson called for a moment of silence on the House floor.
“Political violence has become all too common in American society, and this is not who we are,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill. “We need every political figure, we need everyone who has a platform to say this loudly and clearly. We can settle disagreements and disputes in a civil manner, and political violence must be called out, and it has to stop.”
He later said on CNN there’s a “desire” in Congress to have more security after Kirk’s shooting.
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