Orem, Utah – Utah governor Spencer Cox announced on Friday the arrest of a 22 -year -old suspect in the deadly shooting of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk after the man admitted family members.
“We got it!” Cox exclaimed at a morning press conference.
The suspect, identified as Tyler Robinson, was arrested Thursday at 10 p.m. in St. George, Utah, about 280 miles south of Orem. A judicial affidavit has shown that he had been arrested for suspicion of having committed three crimes: aggravated murder, criminal liberation of a firearm causing serious bodily injury and obstruction to justice.
Cox said investigators have in -depth evidence connecting Robinson to the shooting, including notes on the Discord cat application and marks on the ammunition left with the lock rifle that they believe were used in the shooting.
One of the engravings on the ammunition, said Cox, read: “Fascist hey! Catch!”
Another marking said “Bella Ciao” – a reference to an Italian song that pays homage to the anti -fascist resistance during the Second World War. It has also been adopted, ironically, in recent years in the far right to try to ridicule the leftists.
Some of the most obscure and idiosyncratic engravings described that the suspect has been imbued with online and video game subcultures. “Note Owo bulges What is it?” According to Know Your Even, a sentence “Parody both furs and online role-playing subcultures, which is generally used online as a trained fishing method.”
Asked about the motive of the shooter, Cox suggested that the marking “Hey fascist” clearly showed the shooter’s intention: “I think that speaks of himself,” he said.
But experts in extremism say that it is far too early to certainly attribute a reason – and that it can be difficult to instantly discern the ideological trends of a new generation of young shooters, who are often isolated, alienated and radicalized in an online universe of ironic internet memes and disinformation.
“It is increasingly difficult to immediately attribute motivation because many young solitary attackers are often a mixture of grievances, mental distress and aggressions taken up in social and online circles,” said Brian Levin, professor emeritus to Cal State San Bernardino and founder of his center for the study of hatred and extremism. “Verbiage, memes, targeting, raw humor and cultural references which are immediately available on telegraph patterns for violent symbolic attacks, but can also be amorphous or disjointes.”
Levin said that if the shooter turns out to be from the left – a fact that is not immediately clear – he would represent part of a small one but a continuous trend of fatal homicides on the left which started again in 2020 after a multi -year break. “But Levin stressed that the extreme landscape is quite diverse and that there are more extremely right homicides.
COX said that officials have three days to deposit load documents and request the death penalty.
Friday evening, Erika Kirk broke her silence on the death of her husband – praising her courage and encouraging others to join her movement.
“Charlie has always said that when he left, he wanted us to remember him for his courage and for his faith,” she said. “And one of the last conversations he had on this earth, my husband saw for his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now and for all eternity, he will be held on the side of his Savior, carrying the glorious crown of a martyr.”
Robinson, a third -year student of the Electric Learning Program of the Dixie Technical College by St. George, Utah, would have acted alone. A source of application of the law said that after the shooting, a minister was called upon to intervene after Robinson threatened to commit suicide.
A family member told investigators that Robinson has become more political in recent years.
During a recent family dinner, the family member said Robinson said Kirk came to university and why he didn’t like him. The family member told investigators that Kirk was “full of hatred” and “dissemination of hatred”.
A roommate from Robinson has also shown messages from investigators on Discord, in which Robinson spoke of recovering a rifle from a fall point, leaving the gun in a bush and looking at the area where the rifle was left, according to Cox.
Discord challenged the accounts of the officials, saying that he had identified an account associated with the suspect but “no evidence” that he had planned this incident or promoted violence on his platform. “The messages referenced in recent reports on planning details do not seem to be discordant messages,” the company said in a press release. “These are communications between the roommate of the suspect and a friend after the shooting, where the roommate told the content of a note that the suspect had left elsewhere.”
Cox described Kirk to kill an “attack on American experience” and a “moment in the American history basin”.
The Americans must return, said the Republican, “being able to have a reasonable disagreement when violence is not an option”.
Singling on his “young friends”, said Cox, “you inherit a country where … it looks like rage is the only option. … I hear all the time that words are violence. Words are not violence. Violence is violence. And there is a person responsible for what has happened here, and this person is now in detention and will be billed soon and will be held responsible. ”
Cox’s message was clearly different from that of President Trump, who continued to blame the “radical left” when he announced the news on Friday morning on “Fox & Friends” that he believed “with a high degree of certainty” that the authorities had apprehended a suspect.
When an interviewer noted that there were extremists on the left and right of the political spectrum – barely three months ago, the Democratic leader of the Minnesota Chamber, Melissa Hortman, and her husband, Mark, were fatally slaughtered at their home – Trump said that his greatest concern was the left.
“Radicals on the right are often radical because they don’t want to see the crime,” said Trump. “Left radicals are the problem, and they are vicious and they are horrible and are politically wise.”
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COX said that the surveillance video has shown that Robinson arrived at the University of Utah Valley in Orem in his Dodge Challenger around 8:29 a.m. Wednesday, wearing an ordinary brown t-shirt, light shorts, a black hat with a white logo and light shoes. He then turned into black outfit captured on shared videos Thursday by the police. After the shooting, he changed his clothes, probably to avoid detection.
After following his vehicle in the St. George region, the investigators found him wearing clothes similar to what he was wearing before the shooting.
Trump said he hoped that the suspect would be found guilty and has the death penalty.
“Charlie Kirk, he was the most beautiful person,” said Trump. “He didn’t deserve that.”
The president congratulated the local and state authorities for their work to find the suspect. After Kirk was killed Wednesday after being struck on the neck with a single blow, the officials shared the video Thursday of a man on the roof of a university building in Utah Valley.
“Everyone has done a great job, you know,” said Trump. “You start with absolutely nothing, and we started with a cliff that made him look like an ant, which was almost useless. We just saw that there was someone up there. And so much work has been done during the last two and a half days.”
Kash Patel, director of the FBI, also thanked the state and local officials for their cooperation in the capture of Robinson.
“In 36 hours – 33 hours to be precise – we made historical progress for Charlie, Governor Cox,” said Patel. “Our partnership has been absolutely incredible in recent days. Our partnership will continue. “
The news that Robinson had been captured came in the morning after Beau Mason, the head of the Utah Ministry of Public Security, said on Thursday evening in a television interview that the authorities “had no idea” who is the shooter or if he was still in Utah.
The authorities pleaded for the assistance of the public to identify the shooter and published a new video of a suspect in dark clothes lying in front of the corner of a roof at the University of Utah Valley. He then crossed the roof and jumped from him, using his hands to bend over the edge.
The police also circulated photos of the suspect – which wore blue jeans, a baseball cap, Gray Converse shoes and a black t -shirt with long sleeves which seemed to show an American flag and an eagle.
According to Cox, more than 7,000 advice was submitted to the FBI.
The weapon that would be used in the murder, a high power bolt rifle was recovered in a wooded area near a parking lot, said Robert Bohls, the special agent in charge of the FBI office Salt Lake City. Mason said that the suspect had been seen running towards this area after going down from the roof.
Kirk was a fervent and extremely influential conservative figure in American policy, with 25.6 million subscribers combined through Tiktok, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter.
A provocative figure, Kirk was known to have questioned the leftist Orthodoxies on university campuses and cling strongly to his Christian faith, arguing that there should not be a division between the Church and the State in America.
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Thursday evening, hundreds gathered in a park in Orem to remember and honor Kirk.
The multigenerational crowd held American flags, pushed children into strollers and put on “Make America Great Again” while they prayed and sang together.
“Getting together in the light,” said Mayor David Young on the crowd. “Violence has no place here.”
The mourning people sang Lee Greenwood’s “God inje the USA” and participated in a group prayer.
“This is the healing we needed,” said Klea Harris, whose children helped organize the event.
Many have lined up flowers, candles and flags and placed them in front of a memorial with a larger than life photo of Kirk.
“It is important that we are not turning each other at the moment,” said Jason Preston, a conservative podcast host. He received catchy applause when he said to the crowd: “It is not a right battle against the left, it is a battle of good against evil.”
Earlier in the day, the young conservatives gathered on the campus, suspended the red banners in honor of the republican ideology of Kirk and carrying posters with sentences such as “we are not afraid” and “Charlie Kirk, American hero”.
“I think this kind of awakening has awakened a sleeping giant,” said the University of the University of Utah Valley, Jillian Green, 20. “People are indignant and very upset that he [was killed] When he pleaded for so many of us. »»
Koby Herrera, a colleague student at the university, also estimated that death could mark a change in political history, noting that it could increase the influence of Kirk.
“He had a voice, and I have the impression that his voice is greater now than it is in the grave,” said Herrera, 22.
Kirk spent a lot of young Republicans, and the main members of the Trump administration attacked him for helping them ensure the GOP’s electoral victory in 2024.
