Charlie Kirk, a conservative youth activist and CEO of Turning Point USA, has been fatally shot during an event at a college in Utah. President Donald Trump has said Kirk was killed in the shooting Wednesday. Videos posted to social media show Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans, “The American Comeback� and “Prove Me Wrong.� A single shot rings out and Kirk reaches for his neck. A large volume of blood gushes from the left side of his neck. Stunned spectators gasp and scream. Some run away.

Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and close ally of President Donald Trump, has been shot and killed at a Utah college event in an act that the state’s governor called a “political assassination.� A “person of interest� was in custody Wednesday evening, said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, though no charges were immediately announced. Utah authorities said the shooter wore dark clothing and fired from a roof on campus some distance away. Kirk's death was announced on social media by Trump, who praised the 31-year-old co-founder and CEO of the youth organization Turning Point USA as “Great, and even Legendary.�

The shooter who assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk and then vanished off a roof and into the woods is still at large more than 24 hours later. Federal investigators appealed Thursday for the public’s help by releasing a pair of photos of the person believed responsible. Investigators obtained clues including a palm print, a shoe impression and a high-powered hunting rifle found in a wooded area along the path the shooter fled. But they had yet to name a suspect or cite a motive in the killing. They were treating it as the latest act of political violence to convulse the United States across the ideological spectrum.