Charlie Kirk’s assassination on a bright September afternoon in Utah has irrevocably shaken America’s political landscape.

Yet despite the glare of the world’s media on the killing – described by Republicans as America’s most significant political assassination victim since Robert F Kennedy – the gunman was able to vanish in a puff of smoke.

The slaying of Kirk at a Turning Point USA student summit is the most prominent investigation the FBI has handled since Donald Trump installed Kash Patel to run the bureau. Yet as the manhunt for Kirk’s killer enters its third day, serious questions about their ability to deal with a case of this magnitude have been raised.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, an elderly man named George Zinn was wrestled to the ground by officers, leading to widespread speculation that the killer had been detained. However, he was soon released because he was “not an accurate person of interest”, according to Utah law enforcement.

Then at around 4.30pm local time on Wednesday – four hours after the attack – Kash Patel said that the gunman had been arrested, only to admit an hour and a half later that the suspect, Zachariah Qureshi, had been released after interrogation.

Eventually, on Thursday evening the first CCTV footage was released, showing the gunman haring across a rooftop to escape, making Zinn’s initial arrest an increasingly improbable line of inquiry.