WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters): U.S. right-wing activist and commentator Charlie Kirk, an influential ally of President Donald Trump, was fatally shot in the neck on Wednesday during an event at a Utah university that the governor described as a political assassination.
Authorities had yet to publicly identify a suspect some six hours after the shooting. No suspect was in custody, U.S. media reported, citing law enforcement sources.
FBI Director Kash Patel said an unnamed person had been detained for questioning, then released.
"Our investigation continues," he wrote on social media.
Governor Spencer Cox had said at an earlier press conference that police were interviewing a "person of interest" but gave no details about the person's identity or how the individual was believed to be connected with the shooting. At the same press conference, Beau Mason, the Utah Department of Public Safety commissioner, said the perpetrator suspected of firing the single shot that killed Kirk, 31, remained "at large."
In a video message taped in the Oval Office and posted to his Truth Social online platform, Trump vowed that his administration would locate the suspect.
"My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it," Trump said.
Cellphone video clips of the killing posted online showed Kirk addressing a large outdoor crowd at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, around 12:20 p.m. MT (1820 GMT), when a gunshot rang out. Kirk moved his hand toward his neck as he fell off his chair, sending the attendees running.
In another clip, blood could be seen gushing from Kirk's neck immediately after the shot.
The suspect likely fired from a rooftop at a significant distance, authorities said, adding that there were about 3,000 people attending the event. Jeff Long, chief of the university police department, said that he had six officers working the event, and that he coordinated with the head of Kirk's private security team, which was also on site.
Trump ordered all government U.S. flags flown at half-staff until Sunday in Kirk's honor.
The killing was the latest in a series of attacks on U.S. political figures, including two assassination attempts of Trump last year, that have underscored a sharp rise in political violence.
"This is a dark day for our state, it's a tragic day for our nation," Cox said at the press conference. "I want to be very clear that this is a political assassination."
Trump, who routinely describes political rivals, judges and others who stand in his way as "radical left lunatics" and warns that they pose an existential threat to the nation, decried violent political rhetoric.
"For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals," Trump said in the video. "This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now."
An attempt at a moment of silence for Kirk in the U.S. House of Representatives degenerated into shouting and finger-pointing.
Kirk's appearance on Wednesday was the first in a planned 15-event "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.
