The man accused of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah university has been charged with aggravated murder. Tyler Robinson could face the death penalty if convicted.
The Associated Press
Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old accused of gunning down MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk, texted his romantic partner that he committed the assassination because he’d “had enough” of Mr. Kirk’s “hatred,” prosecutors alleged Tuesday as they announced that they would seek to have the Utah man executed.
Tyler James Robinson, shown in a handout video screen grab from Utah State Courts.Supplied/Getty Images
Jeff Gray, the county attorney for Utah County, told a news conference that Mr. Robinson would face seven charges, including murder, discharge of a firearm causing bodily injury, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering for asking his partner to delete incriminating text messages from him.
Mr. Gray said that he would seek the death penalty.
“Charlie Kirk was murdered while engaging in one of our most sacred and cherished American rights, the free exchange of ideas,” Mr. Gray said. He said that, so far, there were no additional suspects in the shooting.
Mr. Kirk was killed last week in front of 3,000 people in the quadrangle of Utah Valley University, where he was holding one of his regular campus events in which he would debate students. Mr. Robinson is alleged to have fired a single shot from the roof of a university building, which struck Mr. Kirk in the neck.
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Mr. Gray said Mr. Robinson’s mother told investigators that over the last year, Mr. Robinson “had become more political and had started to lean more to the left, becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” Mr. Robinson’s partner, with whom he was living, was transitioning to being a woman, Mr. Gray said.
The prosecutor said Mr. Robinson’s DNA was found on the trigger of the murder weapon, a bolt-action rifle, that he had left a note saying he would “take out” Mr. Kirk, and that he told his partner in a string of text messages that he had committed the shooting. Mr. Gray confirmed earlier reports that Mr. Robinson’s family ultimately convinced him to turn himself in, which he did late on the evening after the killing.
Mr. Gray quoted Mr. Robinson’s family as telling investigators that, ahead of Mr. Kirk’s appearance in Utah, Mr. Robinson indicated he was aware of the coming event and “accused Kirk of spreading hate.”
Mr. Kirk once described transgender people as “against the natural law” and “a throbbing middle finger to God,” and said doctors who provide gender-affirming care should face a “Nuremberg-style trial.” He also promoted the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, asserted that “prowling Blacks” target white people “for fun,” and argued that it was “worth it” to have gun deaths in order to protect the right to bear arms.
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At the moment he was shot, Mr. Kirk was debating the preponderance of transgender people to commit mass shootings, a trope embraced by some conservatives in recent years that has no basis in fact.
In the text exchange, which prosecutors reproduced in a legal filing on Tuesday, Mr. Robinson messaged after the shooting to tell his partner to look under his computer keyboard. There, his partner found a note that read: “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.”
The partner is said to have replied with incredulity: “What????????????? You’re joking right????” later adding: “You weren’t the one who did it right????”
Mr. Robinson allegedly replied: “I am. I’m sorry.” When asked why he had done it, he allegedly wrote back: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
In the messages, Mr. Robinson indicated that he had discarded his rifle shortly after the shooting and was trying to retrieve it but could not because a police car was nearby. He wrote that he had been planning the shooting for a little over a week.
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The following day, prosecutors said, Mr. Robinson’s mother thought she recognized him in surveillance photos released by police, but Mr. Robinson claimed that he had been home sick the whole day. When Mr. Robinson’s father asked him to send a photograph of his rifle – which Mr. Robinson said in the texts was his grandfather’s – Mr. Robinson did not answer.
Ultimately, Mr. Robinson implied to his parents that he had committed the assassination and that he planned to kill himself. Instead, they convinced him to turn himself in and escorted him to the sheriff’s office, along with a family friend. At Mr. Robinson’s home, police allegedly found targets with bullet holes in them.
Shell casings recovered by police with the rifle were inscribed with some messages referencing online memes (“NoTices Bulge OWO What’s This?”) and anti-fascist rhetoric (“Bella ciao,” the chorus of a Second World War Italian partisan song.) The first casing, which belonged to the bullet that killed Mr. Kirk, was still in the rifle’s chamber, police said.
In his final messages to his partner, Mr. Robinson allegedly asked that the partner “delete this exchange” and “if any police ask you questions ask for a lawyer and stay silent.” He also told his partner that “since Trump got into office” Mr. Robinson’s father “has been pretty diehard maga.”
“You are all I worry about love,” he wrote.
His partner replied: “I’m much more worried about you.”