Former FBI agent calls out crucial mistake in security before the murder of Charlie Kirk on Utah campus

Former FBI agent Jonathan Gilliam has questioned why anyone was allowed on the roof of university buildings during campus events in the US, following the shooting murder of Charlie Kirk.

Kirk, 31, a conservative speaker, was murdered by an unknown person at Utah Valley University yesterday. US investigators have released an image of a “person of interest” in the case, who appears to be college age.

Security camera videos show an armed individual ascending stairwells to get onto a roof before firing at Kirk, officials told a news conference amid the manhunt for the killer.

FBI and state officials said the killer arrived at the campus a few minutes before the start of the event, a talk by Kirk titled “Prove Me Wrong” outdoors in front of about 3000 people.

The shooter jumped off the roof and fled into an adjoining neighbourhood, Robert Bohls, the FBI special agent in charge, told reporters. The roof is currently strung with yellow police tape.

“It’s a regular wrestling match between what we see as an issue when we do our threat assessments from the attacker’s point of view and what we can convince the venues to take seriously,” Gilliam told Sunrise on Friday.

“Universities are the worst and as you could see in this video you’re showing right now, there’s no reason anyone should’ve been allowed up high, especially on the roof of a building.

“So now the FBI and law enforcement in general is having to backtrack to try to figure out how this person got there, and it’s very difficult when they were able to get there and then leave.”

Gilliam explained Kirk was just exercising his free speech at a university.

He continued: “It is a terrifying situation.

“I don’t like the term right-wing activist. He is a conservative.

“I knew Charlie. He never threatened anyone. He never brought any harm on anyone. He was just using his first amendment right to speak about things he cared about, and not out of hate but out of love.

“He was a civilian. He wasn’t a politician. He wasn’t somebody in official service. He was a civilian and yesterday he was murdered for that.

“So, I think this is a very - probably one of the most important investigations that this nation has had, and really, the world, I think, at least since the Kennedy assassinations, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

“We’ve come a long way since then and these types of assassinations seem to be (increasingly) happening all over the world.”

The shooter appears to be of college age and “blended in well” on the campus, Utah Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason told reporters.

The shooter has not been publicly identified but the FBI circulated grainy images apparently taken from security cameras showing a “person of interest”. The male in the footage is wearing a black top, black sunglasses and a dark baseball cap.

“The FBI is offering a reward of up to $US100,000 for information leading to the identification and arrest of the individual(s) responsible for the murder of Charlie Kirk,” the bureau said.

The shooter may have engraved messages related to transgender and anti-fascist ideology on their ammunition, the Wall Street Journal reported, but people familiar with the investigation told Reuters they were still being analysed and it was too soon to draw conclusions.

Trump said on Thursday he would posthumously award Kirk with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a later date.

The United States’ highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is awarded by presidents to people who have made significant contributions in a variety of areas including culture and public service.

- With DPA and AP