The release of photos of a person in a hat, sunglasses and a long-sleeve black shirt, as well as a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, reflected law enforcement’s urgent appeal for public help in locating the shooter, who vanished after jumping off the roof and fleeing through a wooded area near the Utah university where Kirk was killed in a targeted attack.

Investigators were sifting through potential clues, including a palm print and a shoe impression found near the scene, as well as a Mauser .30-caliber bolt-action rifle hidden in a towel in a wooded area near the university campus along what they suspect to be the path the shooter took while fleeing. Besides the spent cartridge recovered in the chamber, three other rounds were loaded in the magazine, according to information circulated among law enforcement and described to The Associated Press. The weapon and ammunition are being forensically analyzed by law enforcement at a federal lab for clues that could help identify the shooter or the motive.

The new information suggested at least modest progress in an investigation into a killing that law enforcement was treating as the latest instance of political violence to convulse the United States across the ideological spectrum. Yet key questions remained unanswered. Law enforcement had yet to identify the shooter or disclose a motive and acknowledged at a news conference Thursday that the suspect’s college-age appearance may have helped the person blend in on the college campus where Kirk was shot.

The Wednesday afternoon attack, carried out in a broad daylight as Kirk spoke about social issues at a Utah Valley University courtyard, was captured on grisly videos circulating on social media. The videos show Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone when suddenly a shot rings out. Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as blood gushes from the left side of his neck. Stunned spectators gasp and scream before people start running away.

Trump, who was joined by Democrats in condemning the violence, said he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., while Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, were set to visit with Kirk’s family in Salt Lake City. Vance posted a remembrance on X chronicling their friendship, dating back to initial messages in 2017, through Vance’s Senate run and ultimately praying after hearing of the shooting.

“So much of the success we’ve had in this administration traces directly to Charlie’s ability to organize and convene,” Vance wrote. “He didn’t just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government.”

Kirk’s casket was to be flown aboard Air Force Two from Utah to Arizona, where his his nonprofit political youth organization, Turning Point USA, is based.

Kirk was taking questions about gun violence

Kirk was speaking at a debate hosted by Turning Point at the Sorensen Center courtyard on campus.

The event, billed as the first stop on Kirk’s “The American Comeback Tour,” had generated a polarizing campus reaction. An online petition calling for university administrators to bar Kirk from appearing received nearly 1,000 signatures. The university issued a statement last week citing First Amendment rights and affirming its “commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue.”

Last week, Kirk posted on X images of news clips showing his visit was sparking controversy. He wrote, “What’s going on in Utah?”

Immediately before the shooting, he took questions from an audience member about gun violence.

“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” the person asked. Kirk responded, “Too many.”

The questioner followed up: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”

“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk asked.

Then a shot rang out.

The shooter, who Gov. Spencer Cox pledged would be held accountable in a state with the death penalty, wore dark clothing and fired from a building roof some distance away.

Madison Lattin was watching a few dozen feet from Kirk’s left when she heard the bullet hit him.

“Blood is falling and dripping down, and you’re just like so scared, not just for him but your own safety,” she said.

She saw people drop to the ground in an eerie silence pierced immediately by cries. She and others ran. Some fell and were trampled in the stampede.

When Lattin later learned that Kirk had died, she wept, she said, describing him as a role model who had showed her how to fight for the truth.

About 3,000 people were in attendance, according to a statement from the Utah Department of Public Safety. The university police department had six officers working the event, along with Kirk’s own security detail, authorities said.

Condemnation from across the political spectrum

The shooting drew swift bipartisan condemnation as Democratic officials joined Trump and other Republican allies of Kirk in decrying the violence.

“The murder of Charlie Kirk breaks my heart. My deepest sympathies are with his wife, two young children, and friends,” said Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic congresswoman who was wounded in a 2011 shooting in her Arizona district.

The shooting appeared poised to become part of a spike of political violence that has touched a range of ideologies and representatives of both major political parties. The attacks include the assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband at their house in June, the firebombing of a Colorado parade in June to demand Hamas release hostages and a fire set at the house of Pennsylvania’s governor, who is Jewish, in April. The most notorious of these events is the shooting of Trump during a Pennsylvania campaign rally last year.

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Richer and Sherman reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Nicholas Riccardi in Denver; Michael Biesecker, Brian Slodysko, Lindsay Whitehurst and Michelle L. Price in Washington; Jesse Bedayn in Orem, Utah; Hallie Golden in Seattle; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City; and Meg Kinnard in Chapin, S.C., contributed to this report.