Washington: Conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination had sent shockwaves throughout the US.
After an intense manhunt, the suspect has been taken into custody around 36 hours after he shot dead the 31-year-old Donald Trump aide while he was addressing students and supporters at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.
Trump said on Friday said that a suspect accused of fatally shooting Kirk has been taken into custody, adding that the arrest came after “somebody very close to him turned him in.”
Trump said he had “a high degree of certainty” that law enforcement had arrested the culprit.
“The person was involved with law enforcement, but was a person of faith, a minister, and brought him to a US Marshal who was fantastic. They drove into the police headquarters, and he’s there now. We have the person that we think is the person we’re looking for,” Trump said, as quoted by the Associated Press, citing Fox News.
The “somebody very close to him (the shooter)” that Trump referred to was actually his father, law enforcement sources told New York Post.
The suspect has been identified as 22-year-old Utah man Tyler Robinson, the report added.
Police had earlier released photos of the suspect and videos of him fleeing after committing the crime.
With Kirk being very close to Trump, the authorities spared no effort to trace the suspect. In one of the largest coordinated manhunts in recent history, more than 20 agencies and hundreds of officers were mobilised, assisted by over 7,000 public tips.
According to investigators, the shooter fired one round from the rooftop of a nearby building, using what was later identified as a Mauser 30-06 bolt-action rifle, which was recovered in a wooded area adjacent to the campus car park.
The assassination was carried out in broad daylight and captured on video. A large crowd had gathered under a canopy marked with one of Kirk’s trademark slogans ‘Prove Me Wrong’, when Kirk fell to the gunshot.
Video clips circulating on social media showed Kirk clutching his neck, blood streaming from the wound, before collapsing as panicked spectators fled.
