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An Air Rifle

Does a video show Provo police finding the possible murder weapon and arresting a man as a suspect in the shooting of Charlie Kirk? No, that's not true: The rifle taken by police as they handcuffed a man on a Provo, Utah, street was an air rifle that shoots small pellets that would not be capable of inflicting the kind of wound suffered by Kirk on September 10, 2025. An air rifle's effective range is about 20 to 30 yards, while the bullet that struck Kirk is estimated to have traveled about 200 yards. The man arrested in the video does not fit the description of two men who the FBI said were arrested and later released.

The claim appeared in a video (archived here) shared on TikTok on September 10, 2025. The video's caption read:

Video footage of the apparels (sic) arrest of the Suspected Charlie Kirk Assassin. Rifle can be seen at 1:20 minute mark.

This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:

(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Sep 11 02:09:04 2025 UTC)

(Source: screenshot of TikTok by Lead Stories)

The video showed police handcuffing a man on the sidewalk at 44 South 200 West Street, Provo, Utah. He was then placed into a patrol car.

(Source: screenshot of TikTok by Lead Stories)

A police officer was seen taking a rifle with a scope.

(Source: screenshot of TikTok by Lead Stories)

The officer wore latex gloves as he carried the rifle by the barrel and placed it in a patrol car.

(Source: screenshot of TikTok by Lead Stories)

The person who shot the video in the hours after Kirk was shot to death suspected the arrest he was witnessing, and that the rifle taken by police could be connected to the attack. The arrest and shooting scenes were just six miles apart.

(Source: screenshot of Google Maps by Lead Stories)

The video quickly became viral with reposts gaining millions of views on social media platforms.

Colorado gun store owner Joe Oltmann pointed out the rifle could not have been the murder weapon. It's an air rifle that shoots small pellets using compressed air, not a rifle that uses gunpowder to propel high-calibre bullets. Air rifle pellets travel much slower than rifle bullets. An air rifle's effective range is only about 20 to 30 yards, compared to several hundred yards for a military-grade rifle that fires bullets. Investigators believe the sniper who killed Kirk was positioned on a roof possibly 200 yards from his target.

The weapon carried away by the Provo officer appeared to be a Ruger Impact Elite Gas Piston Breakbarrel .22 Cal Pellet Air Rifle.

(Source: screenshot of Walmart.com by Lead Stories)

Identifying the air rifle is made easy by the presence of a red dot on each side of the end of the gun's stock. This is a close up of the gun taken by police:

(Source: screenshot of TikTok by Lead Stories)

This is the Ruger air rifle advertised by Walmart:

(Source: screenshot of Walmart.com by Lead Stories)

Two men were arrested as suspects soon after the shooting, but both were released after questioning, the Utah Department of Public Safety and the FBI said in a joint statement.

We initially took in George Zinn as a suspect. He was later released and charged with obstruction by UVU police. A second suspect, Zachariah Qureshi, was taken into custody and released after interrogation with law enforcement. There are no current ties to the shooting with either of these individuals. There is an ongoing investigation and manhunt for the shooter.

The man arrested in Provo did not fit the descriptions of Zinn or Qureshi.