In the moments after Charlie Kirk was killed, a 71-year-old man yelled to police officers that he was the shooter, but he later explained that he had falsely confessed in order to help the real assassin escape, police said.

The man, a political gadfly named George Zinn, was arrested on suspicion of obstruction of justice, a felony, with police saying that he had delayed investigators’ hunt for the actual perpetrator.

Zinn was one of two people that police had detained for questioning Sept. 10 after Kirk was killed. They later determined that neither was involved in the killing, and the next day, they arrested a 22-year-old man, Tyler Robinson, on suspicion of murder.

Zinn’s detention at the scene of the crime may well have been consequential. Michael Dutson, a police officer at Utah Val

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