The investigation into the tragic assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk is currently underway, with the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, refusing to cooperate with authorities.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox revealed this information on Sunday, stating that while Robinson remains uncooperative, investigators are attempting to establish a motive by speaking with his friends and family. The 22-year-old suspect is expected to be formally charged on Tuesday and remains in custody in Utah.
According to Reuters, the circumstances surrounding the fatal shooting of Kirk, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and co-founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA, remain unclear. Robinson allegedly scaled a rooftop at Utah Valley University during an outdoor event and shot Kirk in the neck from a long distance.
The incident, which occurred on Wednesday, resulted in Kirk's death from a single rifle shot during an event attended by 3,000 people in Orem, approximately 40 miles south of Salt Lake City.
The shocking incident has sparked concerns about a potential increase in political violence in the United States, highlighting the widening chasm between the left and the right. Robinson has yet to confess to the crime, Governor Cox stated on the ABC program "This Week."
He added, "He is not cooperating, but all the people around him were cooperating, and I think that's very important."
Robinson's roommate, who is also his romantic partner, is reportedly cooperating with investigators. Governor Cox, citing the FBI, described the roommate as "a male transitioning to female," and praised their cooperation. However, Reuters has been unable to contact the roommate or their representatives for comment.
The relevance of the roommate's gender identity to the investigation is still being determined, according to Cox. He stated, "That's what we're trying to figure out right now ... It's easy to draw conclusions from that, and so we've got the shell casings, other forensic evidence that is coming in - and trying to piece all of those things together."
Investigators discovered messages engraved on four bullet casings, which included references to memes and video game in-jokes. An affidavit filed by authorities in the case described these messages.
One inscription read: "hey fascist! CATCH!" followed by a combination of directional arrows, an apparent reference to a sequence of button presses that unleashes a bomb in a popular video game. Another casing read, "If you read This, you are GAY Lmao," short for "laughing my ass off."
Kirk's fiery rhetoric, which often included anti-LGBT and anti-immigrant comments, attracted a large conservative following, but also provoked strong reactions from liberals and widespread criticism. Robinson, a third-year student in the electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College, part of Utah's public university system, was arrested at his parents' house, about 260 miles southwest of the crime scene after a 33-hour manhunt.
Relatives and a family friend alerted authorities that he had implicated himself in the crime, Cox said previously.
Despite being raised by religious parents in a deeply conservative region of the state, Robinson's ideology was "very different than his family," Cox said on Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" program, without going into specifics. State records show Robinson was a registered voter but not affiliated with any political party.
A relative told investigators that Robinson had grown more political in recent years and had once discussed with another family member their dislike for Kirk and his viewpoints, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. Robinson was "not a fan" of Kirk's, Cox said on Sunday.
The assassination has incited outrage among Kirk's supporters and condemnation of political violence from some across the ideological spectrum. Many Republicans, including Trump, have been quick to lash out at the political left, accusing liberals of fomenting anti-conservative vitriol that would encourage violence - even as the president and his allies have often invoked violent imagery against their opponents. "The problem is on the left," Trump told reporters on Sunday. "A lot of people that you would traditionally say are on the left ... (are) already under investigation."
Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, criticized Democrats but also urged calm. "There's this recognition that people have got to stop framing simple policy disagreements in terms of existential threats to our democracy," he said on the "Fox News Sunday" program.
On "Meet the Press," Cox assigned some blame to social media, saying it has "played a direct role in every single assassination and assassination attempt that we have seen over the last five, six years."
Trump has credited Kirk with driving young voters to conservatism. His Turning Point movement says it has more than 800 chapters across college campuses. Kirk's widow on Friday said the movement's efforts would go forward.
A memorial event for Kirk will be held on September 21 in Glendale, Arizona, his organization said. The tragic loss of Charlie Kirk has ignited a fire against political violence among many Americans, and his legacy will continue to inspire conservative values across the nation.
Login