A retired FBI agent described the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk as having the characteristics of a “professional hit,” raising new questions about the planning and execution of the fatal shooting.

Kirk, 31, was killed around noon local time on Wednesday while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.

He was shot once during the question-and-answer portion of his appearance. Security personnel rushed him from the venue, but he was pronounced dead at a local hospital a little over an hour later due to massive blood loss.

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Authorities believe the gunman fired from a nearby rooftop. Investigators have not recovered a weapon, according to CNN.

The suspect remains at large.

During an appearance on Fox News with Jesse Watters, retired FBI Special Agent Stuart Kaplan shared his analysis of the attack.

“I think this assassination, different than the assassinated attempt back in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a very well-planned, very well-orchestrated plot that was put in motion days before,” Kaplan said.

“And this individual had a plan of escape to elude detection of being out up on a rooftop and also being able to evade and elude law enforcement after that shot was taken.”

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Kaplan compared the Kirk assassination with last month’s attempted assassination of President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

In that case, gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks was observed entering and later leaving the venue before opening fire. Secret Service counter-snipers photographed him but lost track before he fired shots.

Crooks was killed within seconds by counter-snipers.

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“I mean, it was really an amateur scenario,” Kaplan said of the Butler shooting.

“This assassination of Charlie Kurt, to me, is indicative of a professional hit. And I’m not so sure that we are going to quickly be able to apprehend this individual without some luck, hopefully.”

Watters pressed Kaplan to explain his assessment.

“Do you mean one shot, one kill, escape already planned and at large? It looks clean, yes. But could this be done by anybody with any sort of basic training?” Watters asked.

Kaplan responded: “Well, when you take a look at the video and you take a look at the venue and the spectators and how close they are to Charlie Kirk, and then you have that kind of like umbrella over him, that kind of tent, you have to know that this shooter had to be perched in a position with respect to being able to lay his sights perfectly, basically a headshot. And the shot that was taken was taken to immediately incapacitate Charlie Kirk. And so this was not some amateur who just, you know, got up on a rooftop because it was, you know, what I consider spontaneous combustion. He got up this morning and decided he was going to do something crazy. This seems the earmark of a professional that got up onto this rooftop well in advance of the venue being occupied by the spectators. He was clearly undetected.”

Kaplan also emphasized that the shooter’s ability to evade capture reinforced the possibility of a pre-planned operation.

“And so to me, this is someone who had some experience some level of sophistication to have mapped out exactly how this was going to go down,” he said.

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FBI Director Kash Patel announced earlier that a “person of interest” had been detained but was later released after interrogation.

Authorities confirmed that the man was not connected to the shooting.

John Solomon, a correspondent for Just The News, reported that the FBI has “a couple leads,” including “a couple hot leads” and “a little bit of foreign intelligence” as the investigation continues.

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The multi-agency manhunt remains underway, with federal and local law enforcement pursuing evidence and reviewing surveillance footage in an effort to identify and apprehend the individual responsible for Kirk’s assassination.

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