{"id":14600,"date":"2025-09-11T15:14:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T15:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/14600\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T15:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T15:14:07","slug":"rifle-used-to-kill-us-conservative-activist-charlie-kirk-recovered-fbi-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/14600\/","title":{"rendered":"Rifle used to kill US conservative activist Charlie Kirk recovered, FBI says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US police and federal agents said on Thursday they had found the bolt-action rifle they believed was used to kill the influential conservative activist Charlie Kirk<\/a> during a university appearance in Utah, but were still hunting the shooter. <\/p>\n

Mr Kirk, a 31-year-old podcast-radio commentator and a close ally of US president Donald Trump<\/a>, is credited with helping build the Republican Party\u2019s support among younger voters. He was killed on Wednesday by a single gunshot in what Utah governor Spencer Cox called a political assassination.<\/p>\n

The killing, captured in graphic detail in videos that rapidly spread around the internet, occurred as Mr Kirk spoke onstage at an outdoor event called Prove Me Wrong in front of about 3,000 people at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, about 65km (40 miles) south of Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Charlie Kirk killing is the sickening latest episode in American political carnageOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The killer arrived on campus a few minutes before the event began, and could be seen on security-camera video ascending stairwells to get on to a nearby roof before firing a single shot, according to the FBI and state officials.<\/p>\n

The shooter jumped off the roof and fled into an adjoining neighbourhood, Robert Bohls, the FBI special agent in charge, told reporters. Investigators found a \u201chigh-powered, bolt-action\u201d rifle in a nearby wooded area, and were examining that along with palm prints and footprints for clues.<\/p>\n

\"UtahImage: Google Earth <\/p>\n

The shooter appears to be of college age and \u201cblended in well\u201d on the campus, Utah Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason told reporters. Mr Kirk, co-founder and president of the conservative student group Turning Point USA, was pronounced dead at a local hospital hours later. <\/p>\n

Mr Cox said Mr Kirk\u2019s events on college campuses were part of a tradition of open political debate that was \u201cfoundational to the formation of our country, to our most basic constitutional rights\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen someone takes the life of a person because of their ideas or their ideals, then that very constitutional foundation is threatened,\u201d Mr Cox said.<\/p>\n

The killing has prompted outrage from Democrats and Republicans over the latest act of political violence in the United States<\/a>, with Donald Trump<\/a> lamenting the loss of a key ally.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of United States better than Charlie,\u201d the US president posted on his Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Who was Charlie Kirk, the right-wing provocateur shot in Utah?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The president ordered flags to be lowered to half mast to honour Mr Kirk, who was prominent in Trump\u2019s Make United States Great Again (Maga) movement.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump, who survived an assassination attempt while campaigning in July 2024, also blamed the violence on the \u201cradical left [who] have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis\u201d in an evening video address. \u201cThis kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we\u2019re seeing in our country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"CharlieCharlie Kirk hands out hats before speaking at Utah Valley University. Photograph: Tess Crowley\/The Deseret News\/AP <\/p>\n

Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University show Mr Kirk speaking into a hand-held microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans The American Comeback and Prove Me Wrong.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Immediately before the shooting, Mr Kirk was taking questions from an audience member about mass shootings and gun violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?\u201d the person asked.<\/p>\n

Mr Kirk responded: \u201cToo many.\u201d<\/p>\n

The questioner followed up: \u201cDo you know how many mass shooters there have been in United States over the last 10 years?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCounting or not counting gang violence?\u201d Mr Kirk asked.<\/p>\n

Then a single shot rang out.<\/p>\n

The assailant wore dark clothing and fired from a building roof some distance away to the courtyard where the event took place.<\/p>\n

US vice-president JD Vance cancelled his trip to New York to commemorate the attacks by al Qaeda on September 11th, 2001, and instead will travel to Utah to visit Mr Kirk\u2019s family, a person familiar with the situation said.<\/p>\n

Kirk began his career in conservative politics as a teenager. A little more than a decade later, some of the friends he made along the way are now at the highest levels of US government and media, with Mr Vance recalling that he was in multiple group chats with Mr Kirk.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much of the success we\u2019ve had in this administration traces directly to Charlie\u2019s ability to organise and convene,\u201d Mr Vance wrote in a lengthy tribute posted on social media. \u201cHe didn\u2019t just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former vice-president Kamala Harris said she was \u201cdeeply disturbed\u201d by the shooting of Mr Kirk, who organised against her presidential campaign last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI condemn this act, and we all must work together to ensure this does not lead to more violence,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe tent where Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while speaking during an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Photograph: Kim Raff\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

Congress\u2019s top Republicans and Democrats joined in the condemning the attack. <\/p>\n

The House oversight committee took a break from considering more than a dozen bills to change laws in Washington DC as part of Mr Trump\u2019s militarised crackdown on crime in the district to hold a moment of silence in Mr Kirk\u2019s honour.<\/p>\n

\"CharlieCharlie Kirk with Donald Trump at a rally in Tampa, Florida in 2022. Photograph: Todd Anderson\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

Former Democratic president Barack Obama condemned political violence as \u201cdespicable\u201d and said it had \u201cno place in our democracy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichelle and I will be praying for Charlie\u2019s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Some conservatives echoed Mr Trump and were quick to blame liberals for the shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Left is the party of murder,\u201d said Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive who threw the federal government into turmoil earlier this year as chair of Mr Trump\u2019s department of government efficiency initiative.<\/p>\n

\u2013 AP\/Guardian\/Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US police and federal agents said on Thursday they had found the bolt-action rifle they believed was used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13477,969,42,43,40,38,41,39,115],"class_list":{"0":"post-14600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-charlie-kirk","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}