{"id":15424,"date":"2025-09-11T06:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T06:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/15424\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T06:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T06:57:08","slug":"charlie-kirk-shooting-police-search-for-suspect-amid-condemnation-of-targeted-killing-charlie-kirk-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/15424\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Kirk shooting: police search for suspect amid condemnation of \u2018targeted\u2019 killing | Charlie Kirk shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a> was killed at a Utah university, sparking condemnation from both sides of politics and grave threats from the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis shooting is still an active investigation,\u201d the Utah<\/a> department of public safety said in a statement, adding it was working with the FBI and local police departments.<\/p>\n

Two suspects were taken into custody, but subsequently released. The governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, called it a \u201cpolitical assassination\u201d, despite the motive and identity of the shooter remaining unclear.<\/p>\n

Beau Mason, the commissioner of Utah\u2019s department of public safety, said investigators were reviewing security camera images of the suspect, who wore dark clothing and possibly fired \u201ca longer distance shot\u201d from a roof.<\/p>\n

In a video message from the Oval Office, Trump vowed that his administration would track down the suspect.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy 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,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Kirk was shot while addressing a crowd<\/a> 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cbelieved to be a targeted attack\u201d by a shooter from the roof of a building.<\/p>\n

map<\/a><\/p>\n

On Wednesday night, the campus of UVU in Orem remained on lockdown, with traffic cones and flashing police cars blocking every entrance.<\/p>\n

At the nearby Timpanogos regional hospital, where Kirk was taken after the shooting and pronounced dead, roughly a dozen people were holding a vigil \u2013 one of several taking place that evening across the region \u2013 at the hospital\u2019s entrance.<\/p>\n

The mourners draped the hospital sign in American flags and surrounded its base with a thicket of candles and homemade signs, including \u201cPeacemakers wanted\u201d and \u201cwe love you Charlie Kirk\u201d. When the hospital\u2019s lawn sprinklers abruptly turned on, gatherers smothered them with grocery bags and cut-off plastic bottles to keep the memorial dry.<\/p>\n

CJ Sowers, 33, and Ammon Paxton, 19, were in the crowd for Kirk\u2019s speech, and said they watched the shooting unfold.<\/p>\n

Paxton said he was right in front of Kirk, and watched his body go limp. \u201cCharlie Kirk was a major role model and hero for me,\u201d said Paxton, who spoke with a red Make America Great Again cap folded in his hand. \u201cOne of our greatest heroes is dead.\u201d <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t minimize actions like this around the world, ever,\u201d Cronin said. \u201cBut we can minimize the impact that they are allowed to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirk\u2019s death prompted outrage from Democrats and Republicans, while the president ordered flags to be lowered to half mast to honour him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a dark day for our state. It\u2019s a tragic day for our nation,\u201d Cox, a Republican, said at a press conference, appealing for an end to the political violence.<\/p>\n

Kirk was the co-founder of Turning Point USA<\/a>, the largest conservative youth organisation in the country, which played a key role in driving young voter support for Trump in November.<\/p>\n

His appearances on podcasts and across social media brought him fame and notoriety, as he helped to amplify the president\u2019s agenda. Kirk frequently attacked the mainstream media and engaged with culture-war issues around race, gender and immigration, often in a provocative style.<\/p>\n

The event in Utah on Wednesday was the first in his \u201cAmerican Comeback Tour\u201d at universities around the country. He often used such events, which typically drew large crowds of students, to invite attendees to debate him live.<\/p>\n

Experts have warned his death marks a watershed moment, with fears it could inflame an already fractured country and inspire more unrest.<\/p>\n

\"TrumpTrump blames ‘radical left political violence’ for killing of Charlie Kirk \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Trump, who routinely describes political rivals and others who stand in his way as \u201cradical left lunatics\u201d who pose an existential threat to the nation, decried violent political rhetoric in his statement on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cViolence and murder are the tragic consequences of demonising those you disagree with \u2026 For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world\u2019s worst mass murderers and criminals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Promising to crackdown on \u201cpolitical violence\u201d, 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.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s list notably did not include violence against Democrats, such as the murder of Melissa Hortman<\/a>, a Minnesota state lawmaker, and her husband, or the attack on former House speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2019s husband<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Former president Barack Obama condemned political violence as \u201cdespicable,\u201d while sending his prayers to Kirk\u2019s wife and two young children. Joe Biden said there was \u201cno place in our country for this kind of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, expressed a similar sentiment: \u201cPolitical violence of any kind and against any individual is unacceptable and completely incompatible with American values.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s director of Hispanic engagement at Turning Point USA yelled at Democrats, telling them \u201cYou caused this!\u201d<\/p>\n

That prompted Democratic representative Jahana Hayes, a leader on the gun violence prevention taskforce, to shout: \u201cPass some gun laws!\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we are in a very, very dangerous spot right now that could quite easily escalate into more widespread civil unrest if we don\u2019t get a hold of it,\u201d Jensen said. \u201cThis could absolutely serve as a kind of flashpoint that inspires more of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reuters contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Authorities in the US were still searching on Thursday for a suspect in the shooting of conservative activist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-15424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}