Charlie Kirk killing: Suspect Tyler Robinson was angered by victim’s politics

OREM, Utah – A 22-year-old man angered by activist Charlie Kirk’s politics turned himself in to face charges in

Mr Kirk’s killing,

the US authorities said on Sept 12, ending a search that followed the brazen assassination before 3,000 horrified college students.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen – we got him,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, said at the beginning of a news conference to announce

the arrest of the suspect, Tyler Robinson.

After shooting Mr Kirk from a rooftop more than 130m away, the authorities said, Robinson managed to evade the helicopters, squad cars and foot patrols searching for him for more than 30 hours.

Then, around the same time that law enforcement received a tip about him, Robinson surrendered himself late on Sept 11 at his local sheriff’s office in Washington County, Utah, a 3½-hour drive from Utah Valley University in Orem, where Mr Kirk was killed on Sept 10.

The authorities believe that Robinson acted alone. He was being held in the Utah County Jail on suspicion of aggravated murder and other felonies, according to court records.

As they tried to discern his motive, the authorities said Robinson had left clues.

They reported on Sept 12 that a family member said that Robinson had grown more political in recent years. According to an affidavit by an agent with the Utah Department of Public Safety, the family member noted that Robinson had recently mentioned that Mr Kirk, a founder of the influential conservative organisation Turning Point USA, was going to be holding an event at Utah Valley University and that Robinson and the family member “talked about why they didn’t like him and the viewpoints that he had”.

Investigators said on Sept 12 that bullet casings believed to have been left by Robinson in a wooded area near the campus were inscribed with a variety of messages, including the insider slang of video game and online culture.

According to the affidavit, one of the inscriptions read, “hey fascist! CATCH!” followed by arrow symbols that appeared to refer to a sequence of controller moves that unleashes a bomb in the popular video game Helldivers 2.

The problem with political violence

The arrest was a dispassionate climax to a frenzied search that seemed to capture the country’s frazzled mood. Mr Cox used the news conference on Sept 12 to make a full-throated appeal for the practice of forgiveness, urging the country to find a way to lower the political temperature.

“We can return violence with violence, we can return hate with hate, and that’s the problem with political violence – it metastasises,” Mr Cox said. “Because we can always point the finger at the other side. And at some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse.”

The comments were in contrast to those of US President Donald Trump, who said on Sept 12 that the “radical left” was responsible for much of the political violence in the country. He went so far as to walk to the edge of excusing violence on the right, saying that most on the extreme right of the political spectrum were driven there because “they don’t want to see crime”.

In an interview on Fox & Friends that ran for nearly an hour, Mr Trump continued the case he made on the evening of Sept 11 to reporters that “we have radical left lunatics out there, and we just have to beat the hell out of them”.

A few details emerged about Robinson’s life on Sept 12. He had briefly attended a different college, Utah State University, for one semester in 2021. A college spokesperson said he had taken classes towards a pre-engineering major.

Robinson was listed in Utah voting records as unaffiliated with a party. The records noted that he was considered “inactive”, suggesting that he did not vote in the November 2024 presidential election, the first since he turned 18.

Mr Adrian Rivera, 22, a former classmate of Robinson at a high school in St George, Utah, described him as quiet and awkward, and a big fan of video games including Call Of Duty and other so-called first-person shooter games, in which users target enemies with their weapons.

Robinson’s family lives in a stucco house in Washington, Utah, the largest home on a quiet suburban block of neatly mowed lawns, expensive recreational vehicles and fishing boats parked in driveways. On the morning of Sept 12, a grey Dodge Charger sat in the driveway, the same model of car that the authorities say Robinson used to flee after killing Mr Kirk.

They said Robinson had shot Mr Kirk from the rooftop of a school building; surveillance video shows a man jumping off the side of the building and heading towards a suburban neighbourhood near the campus. The authorities said Robinson had ditched the bolt-action rifle used in the attack in a wooded area. They found the weapon wrapped in a towel.

Investigators scoured nearby neighbourhoods and, in the hours after the shooting, brought in two people for questioning who they eventually determined were not involved. Robinson escaped the search and made his way back to southern Utah.

Then officials reached a breakthrough: A friend of Robinson’s family contacted the sheriff’s office in Washington County, reporting that Robinson had either confessed or implied to his family that he had killed Mr Kirk.

Mr Beau Mason, Utah’s public safety commissioner, said officials reviewed surveillance footage and found that Robinson had arrived at the Utah Valley University campus on the morning of Sept 10. Investigators also talked to a roommate of Robinson who said he had joked on online platform Discord about needing to retrieve a stashed rifle.

As law enforcement officers rushed to south-western Utah on the night of Sept 11, Robinson was turning himself in. Mr Mason said that Robinson transported himself to the sheriff’s office there.

By 10pm, Robinson was in custody. NYTIMES

Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Glenn Thrush, Jacey Fortin, Jess Bidgood, David E. Sanger and Richard Fausset.