"The Wire" creator David Simon flagged an "unforced error" that law enforcement officials made in their manhunt for Charlie Kirk's assassin.
The FBI has asked the public to help identify a person of interest in the 31-year-old conservative activist's shooting death, and they released surveillance photos of the man and announced they had recovered a firearm they believe was used in Kirk's killing and revealed another detail about their case that surprised Simon.
"The aging, latent police reporter in me can't help put pause to remark on the unforced error of the SAC in Salt Lake's FBI field office making the unforced error of announcing they have recovered a 'footwear impression,'" Simon posted on Bluesky. "A shout-out to toss or destroy those shoes, ASAP."
Simon speculated that authorities may have been eager to show progress in the case, but he said a more experienced investigator – such as Mehtab Syed, a decorated veteran special agent forced out by FBI Director Kash Patel – might not have made the same mistake.
"I suspect that a bureaucrat was in a rush to champion a bit of good police work in the immediate hours and in doing so, p---ed it away," Simon posted. "An investigator would have held that fact close."
Syed, a Pakistani-American woman, was told by Associate Deputy Director J. William Rivers last month that she was not a good fit for the office and offered a lower-level job in the FBI’s Huntsville, Alabama, facility, but she instead opted to retire as the bureau forces out senior officials in an unprecedented campaign that has disproportionately hit women and people of color.