Both persons of interest taken into custody by Utah police investigating the murder of right wing activist Charlie Kirk have been released and are not considered suspects, law enforcement authorities said Wednesday. The suspect is as of this writing still at large and no details about them are known.
Kirk was killed Wednesday afternoon after being shot once in the neck during a speaking event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, local police arrested a man named George Zinn, whom they later determined “did not match the shooting suspect and was not an accurate person of interest.” He was released but for reasons that have not been made public, he was charged with obstruction by UVU police.
Police also took a second person of interest into custody around the same time, a man named Zachariah Qureshi he was released after questioning and in a statement Wednesday evening, the Utah Department of Public Safety said in a statement Wednesday night that “there are no current ties to the shooting” for either of these men, and the search for the suspect is ongoing.
A second person of interest was also taken into custody around the same time. Their release was announced by FBI Director Kash Patel just before 5:00 p.m. Pacific.
FBI Director Kash Patel initially announced the release of Qureshi in a post on social media. That announcement came about an hour and a half after he claimed that that the then-unidentified person was in fact the suspect, an assertion local police immediately contradicted in a chaotic press conference held at approximately 3:30 p.m. Pacific.
Authorities say the shooter fired at Kirk from a nearby building, from a distance of between 100 and 200 yards away — that’s one or two football fields in length. Due to the circumstances — only one shot was fired, it was not a mass shooting, and the shooter appears to have immediately left the scene — authorities believe Kirk was the specific target.
However, Despite speculation, primarily among conservatives, that Kirk’s murder was committed by someone opposed to him politically from the left, nothing is known about who the shooter is or what motivated them.
Police have also not released any details that may help to identify the shooter, and in what may be an indication authorities have little-t0-no such information about them, the FBI has set up a tip line.
