The capturing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk unsettled the nation and is now resulting in hypothesis in regards to the suspect’s potential motives.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Yesterday, Utah officers introduced the arrest of the person they imagine fired the shot that killed Charlie Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley College. In fact, there’s nonetheless questions in regards to the why. NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas is overlaying the investigation and joins us in our studios. Ryan, thanks for being with us.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Thanks for having me.
SIMON: Allow us to start with the suspect. What’s identified about him?
LUCAS: His title is Tyler Robinson. He is 22 years previous. He is from Washington, Utah, which is down within the southwestern nook of the state. A colleague of ours, David Condos, who’s a reporter with KUER, NPR’s member station in Utah, talked to among the Robinson household’s neighbors in Washington. Considered one of them is Kristen Schwerman. She mentioned that she needed authorities to seek out the gunman, however this is not who she needed it to be. She additionally mentioned this about Robinson.
KRISTEN SCHWERMAN: He was a sensible child, quiet. You already know, I used to see him out doing yard work on a regular basis when he was youthful. He had a full-ride scholarship, I assume.
LUCAS: Schwerman labored on the native elementary college. She mentioned Robinson and his brothers went there as youngsters and that their household’s a traditional, hardworking household. They go to the identical church on the town, for instance. She additionally mentioned this about studying that he was a suspected gunman.
SCHWERMAN: It was a shock that it was him, however I so really feel sorry for his mom and his dad as a result of that is not how they raised him.
SIMON: And what led investigators to Tyler Robinson?
LUCAS: Utah’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox, talked about how this all went down. This is a little bit of what he mentioned.
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SPENCER COX: On the night of September 11, a member of the family of Tyler Robinson reached out to a household buddy who contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s Workplace with info that Robinson had confessed to them or implied that he had dedicated the incident.
LUCAS: Now, that info was handed alongside to state and federal authorities. And FBI Director Kash Patel mentioned Robinson was arrested round 10 p.m. native time on Thursday night time. Now, investigators additionally dug into social media. They interviewed Robinson’s household, and Cox mentioned that one member of the family advised investigators that Robinson had grow to be extra political lately. Cox additionally mentioned that the member of the family recounted a latest dinner that Robinson was at and that Robinson had talked about that Kirk was going to be talking at Utah Valley College, which, in fact, is the place Kirk was killed. Cox additionally mentioned that in that dinner dialog, Robinson and a member of the family talked about why they did not like Kirk and the viewpoints that he espoused.
SIMON: Any indication about motive but?
LUCAS: Properly, look, that is all the time the massive query mark hanging over a capturing like this. Neither Cox nor Patel straight addressed that query – the query of motive. However they did supply clues that would level to that subject, one being the dialog about Kirk that I simply talked about. However Cox additionally mentioned that investigators discovered writing etched onto the shell casings that they discovered within the gun that they imagine was used within the capturing. The writing on one unfired casing, learn, hey, fascist, catch, together with some arrow symbols. One other learn oh, bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao, which might be a reference to an previous Italian anti-fascist tune or might be an internet gaming reference.
As our colleague Odette Yousef has reported, analysts in web extremism are cautious about studying an excessive amount of into these very restricted hints about Robinson’s views. They are saying that despite the fact that among the engravings, on their face, might sign anti-fascist views, among the slogans have been utilized by particular far-right teams to troll others that they contemplate to be extra mainstream conservative, all of which is to say it is too quickly to reply the motive of query or political angle.
SIMON: What are you on the lookout for subsequent?
LUCAS: Properly, clearly, the motive query is absolutely the massive one hanging over all of this. Investigators are going to be going by Robinson’s telephones, his web search historical past, his social media, interviewing extra individuals who knew him to attempt to get a way of that, and it may take time. And since Robinson is now a defendant on this case, that info goes to come back out in courtroom papers as authorities pursue the prosecution towards him.
SIMON: Ryan Lucas, thanks a lot.
LUCAS: Thanks.
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