Authorities in the US were still searching on Thursday for a suspect in the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, hours after the close ally of Donald Trump was killed at a Utah university, sparking condemnation from both sides of politics and grave threats from the president.
“This shooting is still an active investigation,” the Utah department of public safety said in a statement, adding it was working with the FBI and local police departments.
Two suspects were taken into custody, but subsequently released. The governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, called it a “political assassination”, despite the motive and identity of the shooter remaining unclear.
Beau Mason, the commissioner of Utah’s department of public safety, said investigators were reviewing security camera images of the suspect, who wore dark clothing and possibly fired “a longer distance shot” from a roof.
In a video message from the Oval Office, Trump vowed that his administration would track down the suspect.
“My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organisations that fund it and support it,” Trump said.
Kirk was shot while addressing a crowd of an estimated 3,000 people at Utah Valley University (UVU) in Orem, near Salt Lake City. Video footage posted online showed Kirk being questioned by an audience member about gun violence in the moments before he was shot.
Video footage shows students scrambling to run from the sound of gunfire. Kirk was transported to a nearby hospital, where he later died, authorities said. Local officials said the shooting was “believed to be a targeted attack” by a shooter from the roof of a building.
On Wednesday night, the campus of UVU in Orem remained on lockdown, with traffic cones and flashing police cars blocking every entrance.
At the nearby Timpanogos regional hospital, where Kirk was taken after the shooting and pronounced dead, roughly a dozen people were holding a vigil – one of several taking place that evening across the region – at the hospital’s entrance.
The mourners draped the hospital sign in American flags and surrounded its base with a thicket of candles and homemade signs, including “Peacemakers wanted” and “we love you Charlie Kirk”. When the hospital’s lawn sprinklers abruptly turned on, gatherers smothered them with grocery bags and cut-off plastic bottles to keep the memorial dry.
CJ Sowers, 33, and Ammon Paxton, 19, were in the crowd for Kirk’s speech, and said they watched the shooting unfold.
Paxton said he was right in front of Kirk, and watched his body go limp. “Charlie Kirk was a major role model and hero for me,” said Paxton, who spoke with a red Make America Great Again cap folded in his hand. “One of our greatest heroes is dead.”
Greg Cronin, a faculty member at UVU, said he had stood on the street corner, with a flag in hand, for the past seven hours. He said he was working in the building next to where Kirk was speaking and watched students flood through its halls after the shooting. Cronin said he hoped the shooting could bring people together in dialogue instead of further political division.
“We won’t minimize actions like this around the world, ever,” Cronin said. “But we can minimize the impact that they are allowed to have.”
Kirk’s death prompted outrage from Democrats and Republicans, while the president ordered flags to be lowered to half mast to honour him.
“This is a dark day for our state. It’s a tragic day for our nation,” Cox, a Republican, said at a press conference, appealing for an end to the political violence.
Kirk was the co-founder of Turning Point USA, the largest conservative youth organisation in the country, which played a key role in driving young voter support for Trump in November.
His appearances on podcasts and across social media brought him fame and notoriety, as he helped to amplify the president’s agenda. Kirk frequently attacked the mainstream media and engaged with culture-war issues around race, gender and immigration, often in a provocative style.
The event in Utah on Wednesday was the first in his “American Comeback Tour” at universities around the country. He often used such events, which typically drew large crowds of students, to invite attendees to debate him live.
Experts have warned his death marks a watershed moment, with fears it could inflame an already fractured country and inspire more unrest.
Trump, who routinely describes political rivals and others who stand in his way as “radical left lunatics” who pose an existential threat to the nation, decried violent political rhetoric in his statement on Wednesday night.
“Violence and murder are the tragic consequences of demonising those you disagree with … For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” he said.
Promising to crackdown on “political violence”, the president cited recent incidents including the attempts on his life last year, the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the 2017 shooting of Republican congressman Steve Scalise.
The president’s list notably did not include violence against Democrats, such as the murder of Melissa Hortman, a Minnesota state lawmaker, and her husband, or the attack on former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
Former president Barack Obama condemned political violence as “despicable,” while sending his prayers to Kirk’s wife and two young children. Joe Biden said there was “no place in our country for this kind of violence.”
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, expressed a similar sentiment: “Political violence of any kind and against any individual is unacceptable and completely incompatible with American values.”
On Capitol Hill, an attempt to observe a moment of silence for Kirk on the floor of the House of Representatives degenerated into shouting and finger-pointing. Republican representative Anna Paulina Luna, who worked as Kirk’s director of Hispanic engagement at Turning Point USA yelled at Democrats, telling them “You caused this!”
That prompted Democratic representative Jahana Hayes, a leader on the gun violence prevention taskforce, to shout: “Pass some gun laws!”
The US is undergoing its most sustained period of political violence since the 1970s, according to data compiled by the Reuters news agency, which has documented more than 300 cases of politically motivated violent acts since supporters of Trump attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 6 2021.
In the first six months of the year, the US experienced about 150 politically motivated attacks, nearly twice as many as over the same period last year, Mike Jensen, a researcher at the University of Maryland, told Reuters.
“I think we are in a very, very dangerous spot right now that could quite easily escalate into more widespread civil unrest if we don’t get a hold of it,” Jensen said. “This could absolutely serve as a kind of flashpoint that inspires more of it.”
Reuters contributed to this report
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
