Charlie Kirk shot dead; new video, images of suspect shooter released

Police in Utah have released a new video and images of a “person of interest” in the killing of Charlie Kirk, a conservative American activist and ally of United States President Donald Trump.
Kirk was speaking at a debate at Utah Valley University when authorities say a shooter fired a single round from a rooftop, fatally striking him in the neck in an apparent targeted assassination.
Anger surges among US right-wing on social media over killing of Charlie Kirk
Jen Golbeck, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland who studies right-wing online activity, told the Reuters news agency that she had identified a volatile mix of grief, rage, and signs of growing radicalisation on social media in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s killing.

Analysing more than 3,000 posts on two social media platforms – X and the pro-Trump forum Patriots.Win – in the 24 hours following the shooting of Kirk, Golbeck said Trump supporters were “grabbing on to a narrative that fits what they want”.

On Patriots.Win, calls for vengeance surged, Golbeck said.

“The entire Democrat party needs to f****** hang now!” one anonymous poster wrote.

“This is the Reichstag Fire,” another anonymous user said, referencing a 1933 arson attack that helped usher in Nazi rule in Germany.

“It’s time to end democracy,” another said.

One anonymous user on X called Kirk’s death a breaking point, warning that the US was “teetering between a political rupture and civil war”.

“We’re past words,” the post read.
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Utah Governor Spencer Cox held a news conference providing updates on the investigation into Kirk’s killing. FBI director Kash Patel and other FBI officials were in attendance but did not speak.
New video footage of the alleged killer escaping the scene was released by the police.
The clip shows the suspected assailant descending from the roof of a building at Utah Valley University, from which he is believed to have shot Kirk.
Cox also said Utah officials have “been working with our attorneys, getting everything that we need, affidavits ready, so that we can pursue the death penalty in this case”.
Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason said that officials have “no idea” whether Kirk’s suspected killer is still in the state.
A letter calling for a statue of Kirk to be raised in Washington, DC, to “honour his legacy” has been circulated among US Republicans, with Congressman Andrew Clyde equating the move with the statue in Washington, DC, of slain civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.
Republican lawmaker says social media platforms working to remove ‘violent content’ on Kirk
Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna said she had “just got off the phone” with staff at left-leaning social media platform Bluesky, and they had agreed to “remove all violent content regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk, as well as those glorifying the murder”.

Luna also called on several other social media platforms – including Meta, X, Reddit and TikTok – to remove videos of Kirk’s assassination that have proliferated online.

“I have been able to now make contact with Meta. They are also working to remove this awful content. Thank you to all the tech CEO’s for doing the right thing. Every single platform is working to remove this content,” she said.

X – owned by tech billionaire and sometime-Trump ally Elon Musk – in particular, has been awash with footage taken by the crowd present when Kirk was shot.
What has happened in Poland?
On Wednesday morning, the Polish military said it had shot down “drone-like objects” which entered its airspace during a Russian aerial attack on neighbouring Ukraine.
According to Polish officials, the drones crossed the border amid a wave of Russian aerial strikes targeting western Ukraine, triggering an immediate military response, which was joined by Polish F-16 fighter jets, Dutch F-35, and Italian AWACS surveillance planes.

One of the drones struck a residential building in Wyryki, eastern Poland. Nobody was injured, according to the Reuters news agency.

This is the first time that NATO-allied forces have engaged Russian military assets since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.