\n<\/p>\n
In the hours after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated, details about his attacker remained elusive, and social media users and live TV commentary filled the void with false information.<\/p>\n
As of late afternoon on September 11, the day after the shooting at Utah Valley University, where Kirk had been speaking, authorities did not have the shooter in custody and had not released any suspect\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/p>\n Federal Bureau of Investigation agents \u201chave been working around the clock in coordination with our law enforcement partners,\u201d FBI special agent Robert Bohls said during a news conference on Thursday. \u201cWe are and will continue to work nonstop until we find the person that has committed this heinous crime and find out why they did it.\u201d<\/p>\n Two people were taken into custody on the day of the shooting, but neither was the culprit, and both were released.<\/p>\n The FBI released images on Thursday of a \u201cperson of interest\u201d and asked the public for help identifying the attacker.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a rundown of what didn\u2019t happen, despite claims to the contrary.<\/p>\n About an hour after the shooting, before Kirk\u2019s death was announced, political commentator Matthew Dowd suggested during an MSNBC broadcast that the sniper could have been a Kirk supporter.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration or \u2013 so we have no idea about this,\u201d Dowd said.<\/p>\n While the attacker remains at large, there is no evidence that the person was a Kirk supporter or someone celebrating.<\/p>\n State and federal authorities said a sniper fired a single shot from a high-powered bolt-action rifle that was later recovered in a wooded area outside the university campus. A university spokesperson said law enforcement believes the person fired from the roof of a building some distance from Kirk.<\/p>\n Dowd was fired hours later for his comments, which also included statements about Kirk using \u201chateful words\u201d that led to \u201chateful actions\u201d. MSNBC and Dowd both apologised for the rhetoric.<\/p>\n Orem Mayor Dave Young speaks at a candlelight vigil for Kirk at a memorial in Orem City Center Park, Orem, Utah [AFP]<\/p>\n Immediately after the shooting, videos of a bald man being dragged away by law enforcement officers circulated widely on X. People sharing the videos\u00a0said\u00a0the man\u2019s name was George Zinn.<\/p>\n Zinn was initially taken into custody, authorities\u00a0said, but he was released and charged with obstruction by police.<\/p>\n The Salt Lake Tribune\u00a0reported that Zinn disrupted events in the past and has a criminal record dating to the 1980s. Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill told the newspaper that Zinn was often arrested \u201con suspicion of trespassing\u201d and was \u201cpolitically conservative, leaning libertarian\u201d.<\/p>\n An image of a different bald man also went viral.<\/p>\n An\u00a0X post with more than 992,000 views said, \u201cThe assassination attempt on Charlie Kirk was allegedly carried out by Michael Mallinson, a member of the Utah Democratic Party, Fox News reported\u201d.<\/p>\n That claim was unfounded.<\/p>\n Mallinson said he is a 77-year-old retired banker \u201cwho lived and was in Toronto\u201d, The New York Times reported after interviewing him. The rumour may have originated from an X account impersonating a Fox broadcast affiliate, The Times reported.<\/p>\n The fact-checking website, Lead Stories, found\u00a0that the image was\u00a0posted in 2020 on X by an account with Mallinson\u2019s name. That account was unavailable on September 11.<\/p>\n A meme has been recycled for\u00a0almost a decade to push disinformation about the identity of mass shooting suspects in the US and abroad. The meme features a real-life comedian whose name and photos have repeatedly\u00a0been\u00a0used\u00a0by internet hoaxers. Once again, after Kirk\u2019s death, the meme\u00a0circulated\u00a0on\u00a0social media.<\/p>\n \u201cCharlie Kirk shooter and Palestinian sympathizer Sam Hyde identified as shooter,\u201d\u00a0said a September 10 X post showing an image of a man with a rifle.<\/p>\n Another X post on Wednesday shared a video of the same man with a gun and footage of him shooting outdoors. The caption said: \u201cVideo of Charlie Kirk shooter now surfaces after the incident and the shooter is identified as Samuel Hackmann. Watch as he warns about the devastation he will be causing.\u201d<\/p>\n The video and images show Samuel Hyde, now 40, a comedian. One of the\u00a0images\u00a0of Hyde with a rifle is from a\u00a02016 YouTube video\u00a0that has been removed.<\/p>\n The video in the X post was originally\u00a0posted on Facebook in 2020 with the caption, \u201cself-defense situation\u201d, and it is not related to the Kirk assassination.<\/p>\n Candles and flowers are placed near an image of Charlie Kirk [Jim Urquhart\/Reuters]<\/p>\n On Thursday, an X user shared a video saying it showed \u201cCharlie Kirk\u2019s real shooter escaping after the shooting\u201d. The post gained 9.5 million views.<\/p>\n But a reverse image search showed the video was taken from a different incident that happened in July, and in another state.<\/p>\n KRNV News 4\u00a0posted the video on July 29 on Facebook, saying police confirmed it showed a suspected gunman escaping after\u00a0shooting multiple people\u00a0at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada. Three people died and three were injured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the hours after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated, details about his attacker remained elusive, and social media users and live TV commentary filled the void with false information. As of late afternoon on September 11, the day after the shooting at Utah Valley University, where Kirk had been speaking, authorities did not have<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[7176,1891,9291,997,4171,12560,150,4527,11745,1388],"class_list":{"0":"post-20778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-charlie","9":"tag-claims","10":"tag-factchecking","11":"tag-gun","12":"tag-identity","13":"tag-kirk","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-shooting","16":"tag-snipers","17":"tag-violence"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}No evidence the sniper might have been a Kirk supporter<\/h2>\n
George Zinn was taken into custody, but is not the attacker<\/h2>\n
Michael Mallinson, a 77-year-old Canadian man, was not the shooter<\/h2>\n
Video of a gunman \u2018escaping\u2019 is from July in Nevada<\/h2>\n