Trump says he believes Charlie Kirk shooting suspect is now in custody

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested during a live interview on Friday morning that authorities in Utah have taken a suspect into custody in the fatal shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk earlier this week.

As I understand it, and again, subject to change, but the facts are the facts, we have the person that we think is the person we were looking for, Trump told the Fox and Friends show on Fox News.

Trump said he learned the development a few minutes before arriving on set.

WATCH l FBI released video of potential suspect on Thursday:

FBI releases CCTV video showing suspect in Charlie Kirk killing

The FBI released surveillance video Thursday showing the suspected shooter in the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk dropping off a roof and fleeing.

Kirk was a supporter of Trump’s dating back to the Republican’s first presidential campaign in 2016. Trump, in turn, has expressed admiration for the 31-year-old influencer.

In many ways, he’s bigger now, said Trump.

The FBI and Utah police were planning to update the investigation at a news conference on Friday morning.

Spoke of gun violence in his final moments

Kirk’s Turning Point USA organization had scheduled two campus events in September in Utah. Kirk, 31, was shot while speaking before a gathering outdoors at Utah Valley University on Wednesday in Orem, Utah.

Kirk was killed by a single shot Wednesday in what police said was a targeted attack. Authorities recovered a high-powered, bolt-action rifle near the scene and had said the shooter jumped off a roof and vanished into the woods after the shooting.

The attack, carried out in broad daylight as Kirk spoke about U.S. gun violence, was captured on grisly videos that spread on social media.

Investigators said they believe the suspect blended into the campus crowd because of a college-age appearance.

Trump has said he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the U.S.

Vice- President JD Vance on Thursday helped carry Kirk’s casket, which was aboard Air Force Two from Utah to Arizona, where Kirk resided.

Kirk was a conservative provocateur who became a powerful political force among young Republicans and was a fixture on college campuses, where he invited sometimes vehement debate on social issues.

The shooting continued to draw swift bipartisan condemnation as Democratic officials joined Trump and other Republican allies of Kirk in decrying the attack, which unfolded during a spike of political violence that has touched a range of ideologies and representatives of both major political parties.

But Trump on Friday seemed to dismiss that narrative, when asked by Fox’s Ainsley Earhardt — who suggested there were radicals on both extremes of the political spectrum — what could be done to fix this country.

I’ll tell you something that’s gonna get me in trouble but I couldn’t care less, said Trump. The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem.

Trump bemoaned the fact that any prosecution for a shooting suspect will likely take years, based on past precedent, to wind its way through the courts. The president said he hoped the suspect would face the death penalty.

CBC News with files from The Associated Press

This article is republished from RCI.