A single shot. Precise, passing through the neck, fired from a distance. Utah Valley University, located in Orem, Utah, became the scene of a nationally resonant assassination on Wednesday, September 10. Charlie Kirk, 31 years old and one of the most well-known activists on the MAGA ("Make America Great Again") right, was holding a rally outdoors, seated under a tent before a large crowd, when a shooter targeted him from an estimated 180 meters away, firing from the roof of a building, according to investigators. It was 12:20 pm. Under enormous pressure, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Kash Patel, announced the arrest of a suspect around 6 pm. The announcement was rushed: The person was released later that evening. Meanwhile, in Orem, Commissioner Beau Mason of the Utah Department of Public Safety confirmed it was a "targeted attack."

Kirk's death, adding to a long list of politically motivated violence in American history, was announced by Donald Trump himself in a message on his social media platform, Truth Social. "The great and even legendary Charlie Kirk is dead," the president wrote. "No one understood or had the heart of the youth in the United States of America better than Charlie."

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