FBI releases video showing suspect in Charlie Kirk murder fleeing the crime scene

The second day in the search for the suspect in the murder of the ultra-conservative activist and Donald Trump ally Charlie Kirk ended in Orem, Utah, as it began: with the killer on the loose — presumably hiding in the residential neighborhoods and woods near Utah Valley University, where he committed his crime on Wednesday. There is still no certainty regarding the identity, ideology or motivations of the man who shot Kirk in front of a crowd from a distance of about 230 feet (70 meters), with a bullet that hit him in the neck.

On Thursday, the FBI held two news conferences, the conclusions of which can be summed up in a single sentence: the authorities still have no idea who the individual they are looking for is, or where he is hiding. The first news conference was held early in the morning. The second one, initially scheduled for 2:45 p.m. (Washington time), was delayed again and again until around 10 p.m. It turned out to be a long and disappointing wait.

The biggest revelation from that news conference, which included FBI director Kash Patel and other agents, as well as the governor of Utah, was a video showing the suspect fleeing the rooftop from which he shot Kirk and then dropping to the ground. The conference lasted barely 10 minutes and there was no time for questions from reporters. Utah Governor Spencer Cox explained that the suspect was wearing Converse sneakers. He said that, after the first photographs were released hours earlier, the FBI had received “more than 7,000 leads and tips,” a number, he added with some pride, unprecedented since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

The governor asked people not to believe what they read on social media, where all kinds of wild theories about the murder are circulating. He added that agents and lawyers are working “around the clock” to move forward with the necessary paperwork so that — once they have caught the alleged killer — they can present a watertight case for the judge to sentence him to death. That goal has become almost an obsession for Cox, who already spoke of that possibility in his first appearance on Wednesday, just hours after the murder.

Utah is one of 27 states in the Union where capital punishment is legal. Since its reinstatement in 1973, only eight people sentenced to death have been executed there.

In the hours leading up to the news conference, the FBI had been sharing information sporadically. Early in the morning they reported having images, fingerprints, and DNA of the suspect, a man likely “of college age.” According to initial investigations, he had used a .30-06 caliber hunting rifle, an older Mauser model that they found lying in the woods near the university, wrapped in a towel, with one spent cartridge and another one still in the chamber. Investigators told U.S. media that the ammunition was “engraved with expressions of transgender and anti-fascist ideology.”

The first two blurry images of the suspect began circulating, released by the FBI, which admitted to the impossibility of identifying the suspect without the collaboration of the public. The second batch of photos, four of them, arrived shortly after; they were somewhat sharper, but still not clear enough for the agents to solve the mystery.

And finally, TMZ, a website usually dedicated to celebrity gossip, published a video, captured by a residential security camera, in which the alleged killer is seen wearing a black cap and glasses, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt with a print that appears to include an American flag. He walks dragging his right leg. The limp, according to investigators, indicates that he was trying to conceal the rifle with which he killed Kirk.

The recording is from Wednesday at 11:49 a.m. (Utah time), before the event had even begun. Kirk was killed while debating with a member of the audience who was questioning him about the epidemic of gun violence in the United States and about the far-right’s recent fixation with mass shootings involving transgender people, following the attack at a Catholic school in Minneapolis. Two children were killed by Robin Westman, who had undergone a name change at age 17 and “identified as a woman,” according to court documents.

The FBI has concluded that the suspect arrived on campus three minutes later, at 11:52 a.m. The event began at 12:00 p.m., organized by Turning Point USA, the organization Kirk founded when he was still a teenager, traveling from university to university to challenge ideas from within the progressive ethos that dominates higher education in the United States.

At 12:20 p.m., the assassin pulled the trigger. A couple of hours later, Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth, that Kirk had died at the hospital, where he was taken in critical condition.

So far, next to nothing is known about the identity and whereabouts of the suspect who has turned American society and politics upside down.

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