A young Utah man suspected of killing the conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a university forum has been taken into custody, as U.S. leaders reacted with sorrow and frustration over the latest outbreak of political violence sweeping the country.
“We got him,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox told reporters at a briefing on Friday, expressing relief after an intense manhunt by local and federal law enforcement that followed Kirk’s murder on Wednesday by a sniper at Utah Valley University in Orem.
The suspect, identified as Tyler Robinson, 22, was taken into custody on Thursday night, about 33 hours after the shooting, FBI Director Kash Patel told reporters. The agency had received more than 11,000 tips as of Friday morning, the most since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, he said.
Robinson was captured after a relative and a family friend alerted the local sheriff’s office that he had confessed to them, or “implied that he had committed” the murder, the governor said.
“I want to thank the family members of Tyler Robinson who did the right thing in this case and were able to bring him into law enforcement,” Cox said. “Through some process, the family came to know that this had happened.”
Security camera images, some previously released to the public, and evidence gathered from the suspect’s profile on the chat and streaming platform Discord also helped investigators link him to the crime, the governor said.
Kirk, 31, a close ally of US President Donald Trump who helped build Republican support among young voters in 2024, was killed by a single gunshot fired from a rooftop as he spoke onstage during an outdoor campus event attended by 3,000 people. Trump called the shooting a “heinous assassination.”
A bolt-action rifle believed to be the murder weapon was later found nearby, officials said.
The killing has stirred outrage among Kirk’s supporters and denunciations of political violence from Democrats, Republicans and foreign governments.
“It is an attack on all of us,” Utah’s governor said, calling Kirk’s murder a “watershed in American history” and comparing it to the rash of U.S. political assassinations of the 1960s. “It is an attack on the American experiment. It is an attack on our ideals.”
In her first public comments since her spouse was gunned down, Erika Kirk vowed in a tearful but defiant livestreamed message on Friday evening that “the movement built by my husband will not die,” and that his radio-podcast show would continue.
She also thanked the ranks of law enforcement “who worked tirelessly to capture my husband’s assassin.”
The United States has been experiencing its most sustained period of political violence in decades. Reuters has documented more than 300 cases of politically motivated violent acts across the ideological spectrum since supporters of Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump himself has survived two attempts on his life, one that left him with a grazed ear during a campaign event in July 2024 and another two months later foiled by federal agents.
SUSPECT’S PROFILE EMERGES
The governor declined to discuss possible motives for the killing. But in describing inscriptions investigators found on ammunition recovered from the scene, Cox said one of the casings bore the message: “Here fascist! CATCH,” adding in response to reporters’ questions, “I think that speaks for itself.”
Details about Robinson’s life were just beginning to emerge on Friday. Cox said the suspect had lived for a long time with his family in Washington County in the southwest corner of Utah, near the Arizona and Nevada borders.
The suspect did not appear to have any criminal history, according to state records. He was a registered voter but was not affiliated with a political party, according to voter records.
At the time of the shooting, he was a third-year student in the electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College, part of Utah’s public university system. He previously had earned a four-year scholarship to Utah State University in Logan, but left after one semester.
A neighbor, Steven Green, said he knew the family from attending the same Mormon church.
A family member interviewed by investigators said Robinson had become more political in recent years and had said to another relative that he disliked Kirk and his viewpoints, Cox said.
He was arrested on suspicion of aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious injury and obstruction of justice, according to an affidavit filed by investigators. Detained in the Utah County jail, he was expected to be formally charged early next week, Cox said.
TRIBUTES FROM FBI CHIEF AND WIDOW
Kirk, a well-connected activist, author and co-founder of the influential conservative student group Turning Point USA, was friends with Vice President JD Vance, Trump’s family and others at the highest echelons of the U.S. government.
Patel, the FBI director, also offered a personal tribute at the press conference: “Rest now brother, we have the watch. I’ll see you in Valhalla,” he said in closing his remarks, referring to the heavenly reward for warriors in Norse mythology.
Speaking hours later on YouTube from the studio of his radio-podcast series “The Charlie Kirk Show,” Erika Kirk urged young people to join Turning Point, and exalted her husband as a fallen hero who “now and for all eternity will stand at his savior’s side wearing the glorious crown of a martyr.”
Kirk appeared at Utah Valley on Wednesday as part of a planned 15-event “American Comeback Tour” of college campuses, having just returned to the U.S. from a speaking tour in South Korea and Japan.
Known for his often-provocative discourse on race, gender, immigration and gun rights, Kirk would use such events to invite members of the crowd to debate him and was frequently challenged by both people on the left and the far right.
“We will never be able to solve all the other problems, including the violence problems that people are worried about if we can’t have a clash of ideas, safely and securely,” the governor said on Friday. “That’s why this matters so much.”
Who is Tyler Robinson, the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s murder?
Eighteen-year-old Tyler Robinson seemingly had a bright future ahead of him.
The Utah teen had scored in the top percentile on his college entrance exam and earned himself a four-year scholarship to Utah State University in Logan. His proud mother posted a video on Facebook in which her firstborn son, the oldest of three, read aloud the school’s letter offering him the grant.
“He’s so excited to start his journey and it’s going to be so amazing for him!” she wrote in another post.
Four years later, authorities say, Robinson fired a rifle shot on Tuesday from atop a building at another university campus, killing conservative influencer Charlie Kirk and triggering a new round of national anxiety over rising political violence.
Investigators are still working to understand what allegedly led Robinson to that rooftop. Officials have not yet identified a precise motive for the shooting, though they offered some clues on Friday morning in announcing his arrest.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox told reporters that a family member interviewed by law enforcement said Robinson had recently mentioned Kirk’s scheduled appearance at Utah Valley University, where he was shot.
“They talked about why they didn’t like him and the viewpoints he had,” Cox said, without offering further details.
Robinson had also become more political in recent years, the family member told investigators, and authorities said he had engraved what appeared to be anti-fascist messages on bullet casings they found with the suspected murder weapon.
Robinson, now 22, was arrested for aggravated murder and other charges. He has no criminal history, according to state records reviewed by Reuters.
He was a registered voter but was not affiliated with a political party, according to voter records. He is listed as an “inactive” voter, which indicates he did not cast a ballot in last year’s presidential election, when Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris.
At the time of the shooting, Robinson was living at his parents’ house in Washington, a farming and residential community of approximately 28,000 near Zion National Park in southwestern Utah.
Robinson’s gray Dodge Challenger – the vehicle that authorities say he drove to the site of the shooting on Tuesday – was parked on Friday outside the two-story stucco home, in a relatively new housing development built among alfalfa fields.
Dozens of media members were gathered outside, along with half a dozen police cars parked along the street. Officers were stopping reporters from approaching the home.
A neighbor, Steven Green, said he knew the family from attending the same Mormon church down the street.
“Great family, good kids,” he said, though he added he did not know Tyler Robinson well.
Canaan Timothy, 21, said he was in the year below Robinson at high school. Robinson, he said, was just a regular student with an interest in music, who hung out with members of the school band.
“I knew him in passing. Just your average kid,” said Timothy, who lives two blocks from the Robinson family. “Tyler, he was quiet, but not too quiet.”
Robinson was arrested late on Thursday without incident after a family friend called authorities and said Robinson had either confessed or implied that he was responsible for Kirk’s murder, officials said.
ATTENDED UNIVERSITY BRIEFLY
Robinson graduated in 2021 from Pine View High School in St. George, Utah. A video online of the commencement ceremony shows him carrying his diploma on stage as attendees cheer.
He briefly attended Utah State University in Logan for one semester that fall, the school confirmed to Reuters.
It was not immediately clear why he left, but Dixie Technical College, part of Utah’s public university system, confirmed that he is a third-year student in the school’s electrical apprenticeship program.
A Facebook post from his mother said Robinson had earned a score of 34 in high school on the ACT college entrance exam, which would put him in the top 1% of test takers, according to the Princeton Review test preparation company.
He has two younger brothers, according to his parents’ Facebook posts. His mother listed her job online as a social worker at a non-profit healthcare company, while his father is the principal of a company that makes stone countertops, according to state records.
His mother’s Facebook posts over the years – most of which were deleted on Friday – mostly doted on her family: documenting trips to Alaska, the Caribbean and Disneyland; celebrating school plays, Halloween costumes and adopted pet rabbits; expressing pride as the three boys moved up in school.
None of the posts appeared overtly political.
Other posts show Robinson and his brothers occasionally with guns, though that is not uncommon in a state with permissive firearms laws.
Robinson’s arrest on Thursday evening capped a 33-hour manhunt for Kirk’s killer, which included the detention of two other persons of interest on Wednesday who were later released.
Robinson was booked into the Utah County jail in Spanish Fork, about 12 miles (19 km) south of the university where Kirk was shot. He has not yet been formally charged.
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