The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the ammunition cartridges found with the bolt-action rifle used to kill conservative activist Charlie Kirk had transgender and anti-fascist sentiments written on them.
The rifle was found on Wednesday night in a wooded area where the FBI thinks the killer ran away after the attack.
It was covered in a towel and still had three empty bullet cartridges in the chamber. The Journal said that each of them had “expressions of transgender and antifascist ideology” carved into them, citing an internal law enforcement alert and a person who was familiar with the investigation.
CNN confirmed the reporting, but they instead chose to describe the ammo as being “scrawled with cultural phrases.”
Robert Bohls, the head of the FBI’s Salt Lake City office, told reporters this morning that officers found “a high-powered bolt action rifle” in “a wooded area where the shooter had fled.”
Bohls added that the FBI lab will look at the firearm.
The FBI provided a somber update Thursday on the killing of conservative activist and Trump ally Charlie Kirk, who was shot at a university in Utah.
The FBI does not yet have the suspect in custody, but they did recover the weapons believed to have been used. Officials said the suspect is believed to be “college-aged” and that they used a high-powered, bolt-action rifle.
“We find ourselves today hunting a murderer,” the FBI official stated. “We are confident we will be able to identify him.”
Officials said that the suspect jumped off the building and fled into a neighborhood after killing Kirk.
The FBI official said that the shooter’s movements were tracked as he moved onto the campus, up a stairwell, and onto the roof—and subsequently fled “into a neighborhood,” which is being searched.
The FBI said it is working with state and local police “to fully investigate and seek justice in the fatal shooting” of Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative youth activist group Turning Point USA, at an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.
The FBI sought the public’s help in identifying the person responsible, asking anyone with information, images, or videos related to the crime to submit it to the police.
FBI Director Kash Patel said earlier that the agency “stands in full support of the ongoing response and investigation.”
Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason called the shooting a “targeted attack,” and said the scene is a “very large area.”
Mason said the “only information” they have on the possible shooter was taken from CCTV on campus, and that the person was dressed in all dark clothing. The shot was fired on campus from a “longer distance,” potentially from a roof, he said.
Separately, authorities said they are also looking at security camera video depicting someone dressed in all dark clothing and that “the shooter is believed to have fired from the roof of a building down to the location of the public event in the student courtyard,” according to a statement from law enforcement officials last night.
In a video posted to social media, Trump said, “It’s a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree.”
“For years, those on the radical Left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” he added. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
