As the hunt for conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murderer continues, the FBI revealed this morning that it had recovered the weapon used in yesterday’s assassination on a college campus in Utah.

Robert Bohls, chief of the bureau’s Salt Lake City office, said that investigators have recovered a high-powered rifle and other evidence. This morning, podcaster Steven Crowder reported receiving an email from an Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) officer that revealed “transgender” ideology on the cartridges.

Officials also say they have images of the suspect before and after the shooting. Myriad X accounts have posted video of what users claim is the shooter on a rooftop.

Kirk was murdered yesterday at about 12:20 p.m during a rally at Utah Valley University (UVU). A single bullet hit him on the left side of his throat and appeared to have severed an artery or vein. He was answering a question about mass shootings when the bullet struck. The Turning Point USA founder was 31. He had a wife and two children. 

Though the murderer is still at large, Bohls detailed the evidence investigators have found thus far.

“I can tell you that we have recovered what we believe is the weapon that was used in yesterday’s shooting,” he said:

It is a high-powered bolt action rifle. That rifle was recovered in a wooded area where the shooter had fled. So the FBI laboratory will be analyzing this weapon. Investigators have also collected footwear impression, a palm print and forearm imprints for analysis.

Officials have received more than 130 tips, he said.

Crowder’s revelation on X suggests that the shooter might be yet another “trans” lunatic.

“The suspect fired one shot from an elevated position on a rooftop in an adjacent building on the campus and surveillance video shows the suspect jumping off and fleeing the area on foot,” the ATF email says:

ATF and other law enforcement located an older model imported Mauser .30-06 caliber bolt action rifle wrapped in a towel in a wooded area near the campus. The location of the firearm appears to match the suspects route of travel. The spent cartridge was still chambered in addition to three unspent rounds at the top fed magazine. All cartridges have engraved wording on them expressing transgender and anti-fascist ideology. An emergency trace has been submitted, and ATF SLC is working leads generated by the trace.

The suspect FBI chief Kash Patel said was in custody has been released, he reported on X.

The at-large suspect wore dark clothing, said officials who saw the individual “flee the scene on security video from a rooftop about 200 yards from where Kirk was speaking,” NBC reported. As well, the shooter “was set up far enough away from the secured event to get a good angle to fire at Kirk and had the discipline to fire only one shot and then disappear. The lack of shots made it more difficult for officials to follow the shooter.”

Again, myriad videos posted to X purport to show the shooter on the roof.

“The sniper was approximately 200 yards from the top tier of the [UVU] Veteran Success Building,” MJTruthUltra X feed reported:

The shooter had perfect line of sight to Charlie Kirk. This was a professional hit.

The shooter landed on campus at 11:52 a.m., Utah Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason said. Authorities tracked him has he traveled the campus, into stairwells and then onto the roof from which he fired the killing shot. Then he jumped from the roof and fled to a nearby neighborhood.

Officials have called the murder a “targeted attack” and “political assassination.”

Mason also said authorities “have good video footage of this individual,” and that the suspect “appears to be of college age.”

“This is a dark moment for America,” President Trump said in a video-recorded address:

Charlie Kirk traveled the nation, joyfully engaging with everyone interested in good-faith debate. His mission was to bring young people into the political process, which he did better than anybody ever.

Americans and the far-left mainstream media must “confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree, day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible,” Trump said.

“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 continued:

This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.

On X, Vice President J.D. Vance detailed his friendship with the slain conservative activist.

That friendship began when Vance appeared on Tucker Carlson’s program in 2017, and Kirk messaged him on what was then Twitter.

Kirk “was one of the first people I called when I thought about running for senate in early 2021,” Vance wrote, and before he decided to run, Kirk introduced him to donors and activists at a TPUSA event. 

“When I became the VP nominee — something Charlie advocated for both in public and private — Charlie was there for me. I was so glad to be part of the president’s team, but candidly surprised by the effect it had on our family,” Vance continued:

Our kids, especially our oldest, struggled with the attention and the constant presence of the protective detail. I felt this acute sense of guilt, that I had conscripted my kids into this life without getting their permission. And  Charlie was constantly calling and texting, checking on our family and offering guidance and prayers. Some of our most successful events were organized not by the campaign, but by TPUSA. He wasn’t just a thinker, he was a doer.