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OREM, Utah — The shooter who killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk and vanished off a roof into the woods remained at large more than 24 hours later Thursday afternoon as federal investigators appealed for the public’s help by releasing a pair of photos of the person believed responsible.

Investigators obtained clues including a palm print, a shoe impression and a high-powered hunting rifle found in a wooded area along the path down which the shooter fled.

They had yet to name a suspect or cite a motive in the killing they were treating as an assassination, the latest act of political violence to convulse the United States across the ideological spectrum.

Two people who were taken into custody shortly after Wednesday’s shooting at Utah Valley University were later released, forcing officials to chase new leads on a separate person of interest they pursued Thursday.

One clue was a Mauser .30-caliber, bolt-action rifle found in a towel in the woods. A spent cartridge was recovered from the chamber, and three other rounds were loaded in the magazine, according to information circulated among law enforcement and described to The Associated Press. Law enforcement at a federal forensics lab were analyzing the weapon and ammunition.

The attack, carried out in broad daylight as Kirk spoke from a university courtyard, was captured on grisly videos that spread on social media.

The videos show Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Trump who played an influential role in rallying young Republican voters, speaking into a handheld microphone when suddenly a shot rings out. Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as blood gushes from the left side of his neck. Stunned spectators gasp and scream before people start running away.

The shooter, who investigators believe blended into the campus crowd because of a “college-age� appearance, fired a single shot from the rooftop where they were perched before jumping off.

“I can tell you this was a targeted event,� said Robert Bohls, the top FBI agent in Salt Lake City.

Trump, who was joined by Democrats in condemning the violence, said he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., while Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, were scheduled to visit with Kirk’s family in Salt Lake City.

Kirk’s casket was to be flown aboard Air Force Two from Utah to ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥, where his nonprofit political youth organization, Turning Point USA, is based.

Gun violence questions

Kirk was a conservative provocateur who became a powerful political force among young Republicans and was a fixture on college campuses, where he invited sometimes-vehement debate on social issues.

He was shot while attending one such event Wednesday, an event hosted by Turning Point at the Sorensen Center on campus in what was billed as the first stop on Kirk’s “American Comeback Tour.�

The event generated a polarizing campus reaction. An online petition calling for university administrators to bar Kirk from appearing received almost 1,000 signatures. The university issued a statement last week citing First Amendment rights and affirming its “commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry and constructive dialogue.�

One such provocative exchange played out immediately before the shooting, as he took questions from an audience member about gun violence when the shot was heard.

Some attendees who bolted after the gunshot rushed into two classrooms full of students. They used tables to barricade the door and to shield themselves in the corners. Someone grabbed an electric pencil sharpener and wrapped the cord tightly around the door handle, then tied the sharpener to a chair leg.

Madison Lattin was watching a few dozen feet from Kirk’s left when she heard the bullet hit him.

“Blood is falling and dripping down, and you’re just like so scared, not just for him but your own safety,� she said.

On campus Thursday, the canopy stamped with the slogan Kirk commonly used at his events “PROVE ME WRONG� stood disheveled.

Kathleen Murphy, a longtime resident who lives near campus, said she has been staying inside with her door locked.

“With the shooter not being caught yet, it was a worry,� Murphy said.

The shooting continued to draw swift bipartisan condemnation as Democratic officials joined Trump and other Republican allies of Kirk in decrying the attack, which unfolded during a spike of political violence that touched a range of ideologies and representatives of both major political parties.

The attacks include the assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband at their house in June, the firebombing of a Colorado parade in June to demand Hamas release hostages and a fire set at the house of Pennsylvania’s governor, who is Jewish, in April. The most notorious of these events is the shooting of Trump during a Pennsylvania campaign rally last year.

“The murder of Charlie Kirk breaks my heart. My deepest sympathies are with his wife, two young children, and friends,â€� said Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic congresswoman who was wounded in a 2011 shooting in her ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ district.