Charlie Kirk’s assassin appears to have picked a rooftop from where he could make a quick escape and be “miles and miles away” in mere minutes, according to a retired FBI expert.
The sniper — who remains at large early Thursday — fired the single, fatal shot from the top of the Losee Center Building at Utah Valley University, some 200 yards away from where Kirk was seated in a pop-up tent speaking in front of 3,000 people, authorities have said.
“If you come off that roof — and I’ve seen the drone footage of this — there’s an open-air parking lot behind that building,” retired FBI supervising agent James Gagliano told “Fox and Friends.”
“So this is a big concern because this person, within three to five minutes of that shot going off, that person could have been in a vehicle on his way out and miles and miles away,” he said.
“Provo airport’s only about 45 minutes from there,” he said — suggesting that the killer could have quickly escaped Utah, too.
Kirk, a 31-year-old married father of two, was fatally shot in the throat at the outdoor speaking event at the college on Wednesday, sending students screaming and running for their lives as he fell to the ground bleeding.
Chilling footage recorded immediately after the gunshot rang out appears to show a small, dark shape jump up and sprint across a roof in the distance as people in the crowd ducked for cover.
Another clip filmed earlier shows the dark shape lying prone on top of the rooftop from which the gunman fired as people below wondered aloud what they were looking at. Kirk was shot moments later.
“People are suggesting this was a professional hit. And yet from that distance, we’re talking a little over 500 feet, just short of 200 yards, that’s not a tough shot with a rifle, if this suspect had a scope,” Gagliano said.
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“It’s a very easy shot.”
US Army Sergeant Nicholas Ranstad, an elite American sharpshooter, also called it an “easy shot,” suggesting there was no reason to believe the killer was a trained sniper, further complicating the hunt.
Lack of security at UVU made the campus “a buffet for someone who wanted to kill someone,” Ranstad, who held the record for longest American kill in Afghanistan, told the Daily Mail.
“When you have events like that, you look at the security, if you push 250, 300 yards, it’s an easy shot,” he said.
“Not to mention out in the open, wind is low out in the country. It’s not like in the city, where a bullet flying past the buildings will move more,” Ranstad added.
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UVU Police Chief Jeff Long said his department had just six officers working Kirk’s event alongside the activist’s personal security team.
Kirk was rushed to a local hospital, where he died from his wounds, leaving behind a wife and two children.
In the chaos after the shooting, authorities detained two different persons of interest who were subsequently each released.
Despite the complexities of the investigation, Gagliano said he expects law enforcement to have a suspect in custody by the end of the day Thursday, as a massive manhunt for the shooter is underway.
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