Manhunt Continues for Killer of Charlie Kirk, Charismatic Right-Wing Activist

Two hours earlier, Mr. Patel had stoked expectations of a fast end to the search by congratulating state, local and federal officials for taking into custody “the subject for the horrific shooting today.”

The release of the subject capped a day of shock, fear and uncertainty over what officials described as political assassination, committed in broad daylight in front of thousands of people who had come to participate in a discussion with Mr. Kirk, 31, at Utah Valley University.

The backtrack was a source of significant embarrassment for the F.B.I. director on a day when three former F.B.I. agents filed a lawsuit against Mr. Patel that portrayed him as a partisan neophyte more interested in social media, and swag, than in the day-to-day operations of the nation’s flagship law enforcement agency.

That the director of the F.B.I., historically known for careful messaging on fluid investigations — and deferring to local leaders — would personally take the lead in releasing information about the shooting was unusual.

It was even more unusual that he chose to post that information minutes before Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah and officials from the F.B.I. and local law enforcement were scheduled to provide the first on-camera briefing on the shooting.

Moments after Mr. Patel’s post, Beau Mason, the commissioner of Utah’s Department of Public Safety, told reporters that his agency and the F.B.I. would be working together “to find this killer,” suggesting the search was ongoing.

Mr. Cox spoke next, saying that the authorities had “a person of interest in custody,” but also that the police would find whoever had committed the crime.

In response to reporters’ questions about Mr. Patel’s post, the governor repeated his statement that authorities were questioning someone in custody.

Another person who had been taken into custody immediately after the shooting — and seen in videos that circulated widely on social media — was determined not to be the shooter, the authorities said.

In a phone interview on Wednesday, Mr. Mallinson said he was a 77-year-old retired banker who lived and was in Toronto. But thousands of posts on social media claimed he was a registered Democrat from Utah who had shot and killed Mr. Kirk. The mix-up was apparently because of his resemblance to a man who was briefly detained by the police after the shooting.

“I’m just shocked by it,” he said in the interview on Wednesday. “How quickly it can happen, how one’s name and photo can get spread around quite quickly.”

In the frantic aftermath of major breaking news, people tend to search desperately for new information. That process can sometimes lead to false conclusions. Social media can add another chaotic element, with unconfirmed claims spreading widely and rapidly before they are fully checked out.

In Mr. Mallinson’s case, the rumor appeared to have originated from an account on X called Fox 11 Reno, though it has no relation to a Fox broadcast affiliate based in Nevada. Instead, it is a fake account, apparently meant to drum up traffic — and ad revenue — for its own phony website. Until late last year, the account used a different username and posted only in Spanish. (The account later deleted its posts about the shooting.)

A spokeswoman for Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns the Fox affiliate in Nevada, said that the account was “impersonating the station” and that they were trying to shut it down.

Such websites are known to respond to so-called “information voids” by publishing claims about developments in a breaking news story in an effort to rank highly on search results. When someone searches for more information and clicks on the website, the site’s owners collect a few pennies from the ad impressions they generate.

Other users on X quickly repeated the claim about Mr. Mallinson, wrongly citing “Fox” as their source. Some users replied to the original post, calling Mr. Mallinson a “far left extremist” or “Pure evil.” One post by a user on X, which claimed Mr. Mallinson was the shooter and a registered Democrat, received nearly 3 million views.

Soon, Mr. Mallinson was receiving direct messages on Facebook calling him a “savage,” among other names.

Grok, the A.I. chatbot created by Elon Musk’s xAI, repeated the falsehood in some of its replies to users, writing at one point that “the suspect, Michael Mallinson, was apprehended at the scene.” Grok sources some of its information from posts on X. (Other posts from Grok said that the connection was unconfirmed or discredited.)

X did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Mallinson said he had reported the incident to the local police and has tried to wipe his presence from all social media. It was a difficult decision, he said, because he works as a patient advocate for a rare and painful form of arthritis and uses social media to connect with people around the world.

He said he may consider suing people or websites who circulated the falsehood if the ordeal continued.

“I would expect, because the news cycle moves so quickly, that it will blow over soon,” Mr. Mallinson said. “But there’s always a chance that some idiots somewhere will get hold of this information a few months from now and start making noise about it.”

“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, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials and everyone else who brings order to our country,” he said.

High-profile attacks linked to politics have proliferated in recent years. At a moment of deep divisions in the country, Americans on both sides of the political spectrum have been affected by it, Republicans and Democrats alike.

In his video, Mr. Trump connected Mr. Kirk’s death to other recent attacks on political figures, all of them Republicans. He mentioned the attempt on his own life during a political rally in Butler, Pa.; the 2017 shooting of Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana; and attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Mr. Trump made no mention of attacks on Democrats, including Melissa Hortman, the former Democratic speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, who was killed in June.

The four-minute video came just hours after Mr. Kirk, the founder of the nation’s pre-eminent right-wing youth activist group, was fatally shot while speaking at an event on a college campus in Utah.

“Radical-left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives,” Mr. Trump said.

The president also honored Mr. Kirk’s life, calling him a “martyr” and a “patriot" and lauding his commitment to free speech, the rule of law and God.

“Charlie was the best of America, and the monster who attacked him was attacking our whole country,” Mr. Trump said. “An assassin tried to silence him with a bullet, but he failed because together we will ensure that his voice, his message and his legacy will live on for countless generations to come.”

“It was scary,” Mr. Maxwell said.

Mr. Maxwell rushed home. As he was reviewing his footage later, he noticed a figure running across the roof of a building from which a university spokesperson said the shot that killed Mr. Kirk was fired.

A New York Times analysis of a second video shows what appears to be a person lying on the same roof before the shooting. It is unclear if this person was the shooter, but someone there would have had a clear line of sight to Mr. Kirk. Beau Mason, head of Utah’s Department of Public Safety, said in a press conference that the gunfire that killed Mr. Kirk came from “a longer distance shot, from a roof.”

Mr. Kirk’s killing prompted outrage from members of both parties who called for an end to politically motivated violence, though the shooter’s views and motivations were not immediately known.

If there was a moment when political violence became a largely accepted part of the American culture, it likely came on or after Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election in his favor.

Almost immediately, Mr. Trump and his Republican allies began rewriting the history of that event, a project that culminated in the president pardoning 1,600 people who had been convicted of or charged with federal crimes related to the violence. Mr. Trump, of course, was himself indicted in connection with the events on Jan. 6 and his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election, but those charges were dropped after he won the 2024 election.

Officials at the local and national level routinely encounter threats. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Democrat of Michigan, was the subject of a kidnapping plot in 2020. A man who ran for the New Mexico legislature as a Republican was convicted earlier this year of orchestrating a politically motivated shooting spree against four Democratic officials. (No one was injured in the attacks.) In Washington, armed men have been arrested and accused of heading toward the homes of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and former President Barack Obama with the intent to kill them.

There’s more.

The husband of Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the former Democratic House speaker, was attacked in their San Francisco home by a man wielding a hammer in 2022. Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, was shot while the Republican congressional baseball team practiced in 2017. And in what marked the first major act of political violence of the 21st century, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, was gravely wounded, and six others were killed, during a mass shooting while she met with constituents in the parking lot of a supermarket in 2011.

The nation’s more distant history is littered with acts of political violence, though major episodes were spaced farther apart in the 19th and 20th centuries. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy were each shot dead in office.

In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were both killed by assassins.

President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded in Washington during his first term. Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for a return to the White House, survived a shooting attempt during a speech he was giving in Milwaukee.

Scores of other attempts on presidents’ lives failed.

Mr. Kirk frequently held what he called “Prove Me Wrong” exchanges, inviting people to debate him about current events and statements Mr. Kirk and members of his team had made. Videos shared on Turning Point USA’s social media pages showed Mr. Kirk engaging in debates about stricter border control, the rights of transgender women and the ethics of abortions.

After the stop at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, Mr. Kirk had been scheduled to appear at Colorado State University on Sept. 18 and the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus on Sept. 22.

Several tour stops, including those at Virginia Tech and Utah State University, also were to include events in the evening.

The event that was planned at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus was to include “a candid conversation about conservative values, followed by a live Q&A,” according to the venue’s website.

The tour, which was to run through October, also included stops at Louisiana State University, Indiana University and Montana State University. During the spring semester, Mr. Kirk appeared at Florida State University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Texas A&M University.

In a news release, Turning Point USA had said the aim of the tour was to equip students with “the tools to push back against left-wing indoctrination in academia and reclaim their right to free speech.” The organization said it was a “direct response to those trying to silence dissenting voices.”

At Utah State University, more than 6,800 students had signed a petition seeking to prevent him from speaking on their campus, saying his political commentary was in conflict with the university’s values of “inclusivity, respect and enlightenment.”

A political organizer and podcast host who appealed to young conservatives and wealthy Republicans alike, Mr. Kirk accrued political power despite never having held office or worked on a campaign. In a series of interviews for a profile in The New York Times Magazine, which published in February, Mr. Kirk said that he had visited the White House “a hundred-plus” times during Mr. Trump’s first term.

He was also an early champion of JD Vance as a running mate for Mr. Trump. And just after the 2024 election, Mr. Kirk became part of an intimate group of advisers vetting prospective White House appointees for loyalty.

After the shooting, Mr. Trump called Mr. Kirk “a great guy from top to bottom” on social media.

Mr. Kirk was married to Erika Frantzve, a podcast host and a former Miss Arizona, who also owns a line of faith-themed streetwear. He lived in Scottsdale, Ariz., with his wife and their two young children. In the past, Mr. Kirk had argued for a secular approach to politics. In recent years, he increasingly invoked Christianity in speeches and on podcasts.

Mr. Kirk grew up in Prospect Heights, Ill., an affluent Chicago suburb. His mother was a counselor at a mental health clinic, and his father was an architect whose firm designed the Trump Tower in New York. He applied to colleges and was accepted by Baylor University but never attended, instead turning his attention to politics.

At the age of 18, Mr. Kirk founded Turning Point USA, a conservative youth organization that attracts tens of millions of dollars in donations. Today, the organization has chapters at more than 850 colleges that register students to vote and bring conservative speakers to campus. The event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, which drew at least 1,000 people, was the first stop of a tour organized through Turning Point.

He was interested in politics as early as his high school days, having been a fan of Rush Limbaugh then. Mr. Limbaugh headlined one of Mr. Kirk’s events in 2019 and donated money to his cause.

In July 2016, Mr. Kirk also became the youngest speaker at the Republican National Convention at age 23. And three years later, he founded a political action organization, Turning Point Action.

In recent years, Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action have grown exponentially, going from a total revenue of $4.3 million in 2016 to $92.4 million in 2023, with a vast majority of it from donations.

Aside from his close ties to Washington, Mr. Kirk was a charismatic figure on TV and online. Through his podcast, “The Charlie Kirk Show,” speaking appearances and book sales, he became a millionaire. He often cast liberal views as extreme; he called the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “a bad guy” and labeled Kamala Harris as “Kamala the Communist.” One of his projects, the Professor Watchlist, aimed to expose “radical” academics, including those who were critical of his own work.

Mr. Kirk was accused of antisemitism, homophobia and racism, having blamed Jewish communities for fomenting hatred against white people, criticized gay rights on religious grounds and questioned the qualifications of Black airline pilots.

Over the years, Mr. Kirk’s loyalty to the president had not appeared to waver. Mr. Trump’s support in the Republican Party was flagging after he lost the 2020 election, but Mr. Kirk visited Mar-a-Lago in February 2021 and was photographed smiling alongside Mr. Trump. After Mr. Trump was elected for a second term, he expressed gratitude to Mr. Kirk for “what he’s done with the young people.”

Mr. Kirk was also a close friend of Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son. The two traveled to Greenland in January to publicize the incoming president’s proclaimed intent to acquire the Arctic territory. And a few weeks later, at a private party at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia two days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the president’s son described Mr. Kirk onstage as “one of the true rock stars of this movement.”

In January, Mr. Kirk, along with his wife and children, went to Washington for Mr. Trump’s second inauguration.

Robert Draper contributed reporting.

The four-year school, located near Utah Lake with a view of the Wasatch Mountains, promotes its affordability and accessibility and is known for its innovative curriculum.

In addition to more traditional colleges courses, the school gives students the option to enroll in vocational training, similar to a community college. It is also known for its high school partnership program, which permits high school students to earn college credit.

The school admits virtually everyone who applies, and many of its students are considered “nontraditional” college students, meaning they are 25 years old or older.

Among its students, 14 percent are parents. And 78 percent of its students work while attending school.

A large number of students are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the predominant religion in Orem, the city of about 100,000 where the school is located. The university also has the largest Latino enrollment of any four-year school in the state.

Late Wednesday afternoon, as reports of the shooting spread widely throughout the Capitol, Speaker Mike Johnson interrupted a series of votes and sought to quiet the typically clamorous House.

“Please rise for a moment of prayer for Charlie Kirk and his family,” he asked.

The entire House obliged. For 30 seconds, lawmakers in both parties and observers in the gallery above fell silent. But when Mr. Johnson gaveled the House back to order, it descended almost immediately into a fracas.

Representative Lauren Boebert, a far-right Colorado Republican, began calling for Mr. Johnson’s attention and asked that someone lead a spoken prayer for Mr. Kirk, who was reported at the time to be in critical condition.

“I believe silent prayers get silent results,” she said.

Democrats jeered loudly, and some of them could be heard noting angrily that congressional Republicans had all but ignored a school shooting earlier in the day.

Mr. Johnson appeared to be responding that such a prayer could be made once the House had concluded its legislative business for the day. But the shouting only begot more shouting, and he could barely be heard trying to quell the brouhaha.

Then Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a former conservative influencer who was close to Mr. Kirk and has said he was responsible for her congressional career, waded in.

Pointing angrily at the side of the chamber where Democrats sit, Ms. Luna blamed them for the shooting, though authorities were still looking for the shooter at the time and no motive was known.

“You all caused this,” she said, uttering at least one expletive as she continued to shout.

As other Republicans began yelling at Democrats, calling on them to back down, one Democrat responded, “Pass some gun laws!”

Mr. Johnson called for order several times, and eventually, the chamber briefly quieted down.

“We will join for prayer right after this, OK?” Mr. Johnson said.

More shouting ensued and the speaker again called for order, this time visibly frustrated as he looked over at Democrats’ side of the aisle.

Shortly thereafter, the House returned to its next order of business: swearing in James Walkinshaw, a Virginia Democrat who won a special election on Tuesday night and was reporting for his first day.

Megyn Kelly, streaming live on YouTube, was tearful even before the news was confirmed, sobbing with her guest, Glenn Beck of The Blaze.

She described Mr. Kirk as a friend who supported her even when her relations with the MAGA world were strained. “I am so sorry to be bringing you this news,” Ms. Kelly told her audience. Later in the stream, she warmly praised former Presidents Obama and Biden for extending their sympathies to Mr. Kirk’s family. “I accept those hands of friendship,” she said of the Democratic leaders.

Mr. Kirk was shot at Utah Valley University while on the “American Comeback Tour,” an event series produced by Turning Point USA, the right-wing political organization he founded. Ms. Kelly was scheduled to appear alongside Mr. Kirk on a similar tour stop in Virginia on Sept. 24.

Mr. Kirk, a frequent guest on Fox News, also served as a guest host of “Fox & Friends Weekend” over the summer.

On “The Five,” Dana Perino, the Fox host and former White House press secretary, struggled to speak at times as she discussed Mr. Kirk’s death. Jesse Watters, her co-host, sounded angry, telling viewers, “We’re going to avenge Charlie’s death.” Jeanine Pirro, a former host on the show who is now the U.S. attorney for Washington, called in to “The Five” to say that she was “heartbroken.”

Right-wing influencers and podcast hosts poured their grief onto the social media platform X. Benny Johnson, the YouTuber, called Mr. Kirk “a martyr.” Ben Shapiro, the co-founder of the Daily Wire, wrote that Mr. Kirk was 18 when they met.

“‘That kid is going to be the head of the R.N.C. one day,’” Mr. Shapiro said he told a friend at the time. “Charlie became even bigger and more important than that.”