{"id":141597,"date":"2025-09-14T02:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T02:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/141597\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T02:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T02:42:09","slug":"questions-linger-about-alleged-shooters-motivation-for-killing-charlie-kirk-charlie-kirk-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/141597\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions linger about alleged shooter\u2019s motivation for killing Charlie Kirk | Charlie Kirk shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though the suspect in the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk<\/a> was revealed by authorities on Friday, questions surrounding his identity and motivations have exacerbated intense US political debates in the aftermath of the shooting.<\/p>\n

Authorities revealed Kirk\u2019s suspected killer to be Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old man who grew up in Washington, Utah<\/a>, along the state\u2019s south-western border.<\/p>\n

In absence of a clear motive for the slaying, reports have tried to piece together information about Robinson and his background. He is a third-year student in an electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College in the state. Both of his parents are registered Republicans, though his personal political beliefs remain unclear. Now-deleted pictures on social media show Robinson and his family posing with guns.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal<\/a> published on Saturday, Utah\u2019s governor, Spencer Cox, said: \u201cIt\u2019s very clear to us and to investigators that this was a person who was deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology.\u201d Cox cited the findings of the ongoing investigation into Robinson and his possible motive but did not provide any further details about how officials arrived at that conclusion.<\/p>\n

The FBI declined to comment about reporting on Saturday including by conservative media outlets Fox News and the New York Post, citing law enforcement sources, that Robinson lived with a partner who was trans \u2013 a member of a community against whom Kirk rallied \u2013 and was cooperating with investigators.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, citing a half-dozen of its own sources familiar with the case, the left-leaning Axios<\/a> said authorities were investigating whether Robinson believed Kirk\u2019s views on gender identity were \u201c\u2018hateful\u2019 to people like Robinson\u2019s transgender roommate\u201d.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Cox\u2019s remarks were published a day after he delivered a speech following Robinson\u2019s arrest in which he had a candid moment about Robinson\u2019s identity as a Utahn.<\/p>\n

\u201cBad stuff happens, and for 33 hours, I was praying that if this had to happen here, it wouldn\u2019t be one of us,\u201d Cox said. \u201cThat somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country. Sadly, that prayer was not answered the way I hoped for.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to explain that it would have been \u201ceasier on us\u201d if the suspect weren\u2019t from the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because I thought it would make it easier on us to say, \u2018Hey, we don\u2019t do that here.\u2019 Indeed, Utah is a special place, we lead the nation in charitable giving, we lead the nation in service every year,\u201d Cox said, tears welling in his eyes. \u201cBut it did happen here, and it was one of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Robinson\u2019s identity was revealed, some conservatives have softened their attacks against Kirk\u2019s alleged murderer as an individual \u2013 but continue to leverage anger toward liberals as a group.<\/p>\n

Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina tweeted on Wednesday that \u201cit\u2019s time to bring back the death penalty\u201d following Kirk\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Mace said that Kirk \u201cwould want us to pray for such an evil and lost individual like Tyler Robinson to find Jesus Christ\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will try to do the same,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

She later doubled down on the death penalty, saying: \u201cSome crimes are so evil, the only just punishment is the death penalty.\u201d But, referring to the way the suspect\u2019s father reportedly had a role in turning him over to authorities, she also said: \u201cWe are sending prayers and our high regards to Tyler Robinson\u2019s father for doing the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cox\u2019s speech has largely been praised as highlighting unity<\/a> during a divisive moment, providing a stark contrast to Donald Trump, who considered Kirk a close ally. The president on Friday appeared on Fox & Friends and was asked by host Ainsley Earhardt, \u201cHow do we fix this country? How do we come back together?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe radicals on the right are radical because they don\u2019t want to see crime,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThe radicals on the left are the problem \u2013 and they are vicious and horrible and politically savvy. They want men in women\u2019s sports, they want transgender people, they want open borders. The worst thing that happened to this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conservatives had latched onto reports \u2013 that have since been retracted<\/a> \u2013 that the casings for bullets found with the gun that police suspect was used to kill Kirk were engraved with markings indicating \u201ctrans ideology\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the surprise of literally no one,\u201d Megyn Kelly said on her show earlier in the aftermath of Kirk\u2019s killing. \u201cThere\u2019s one particular group that\u2019s been running around killing Americans in the name of ideology, and it\u2019s transgender activists or individuals, or those who proclaim that they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once Robinson\u2019s identity was revealed, Kelly speculated that Robinson must have been radicalized after going to college.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis kid got radicalized, and obviously had a psychotic break \u2026 I am disturbed to see that he appears to have come from a loving, intact family,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cIf you look at the family social media profile, it looks like a happy family. It looks like a loving mom, and a loving dad. He had two younger brothers, there\u2019s lots of family photos of them going on vacations and family dinners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly noted that while authorities will be seeking the death penalty, it is ultimately a \u201cmental health issue\u201d that underpins the \u201cradicalization\u201d of young people who go to college.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, white nationalist Nick Fuentes<\/a> sought to shut down speculation that Robinson may have been a \u201cGroyper\u201d, a nickname for a follower of Fuentes, after reports<\/a> on the engravings on the bullets of the alleged killer\u2019s gun led to theorizing on his ideology.<\/p>\n

Groypers had long criticized Kirk and trolled speakers at his events because the former perceived the latter to be too politically moderate.<\/p>\n

While Fuentes claimed<\/a> in a social media post that he and his followers were \u201ccurrently being framed for the murder of Charlie Kirk,\u201d he also said in a streaming video: \u201cI pray to God there is no further violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo all of my followers, if you take up arms, I disavow you,\u201d Fuentes said. \u201cI disown you in the strongest possible terms.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though the suspect in the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was revealed by authorities on Friday, questions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-141597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}