{"id":22253,"date":"2025-09-14T18:08:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T18:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/22253\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T18:08:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T18:08:06","slug":"suspect-in-charlie-kirk-shooting-not-cooperating-with-authorities-utah-governor-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/22253\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspect in Charlie Kirk shooting not cooperating with authorities, Utah governor says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Charlie Kirk&#8217;s alleged killer is &#8220;not co-operating&#8221; with authorities and has not confessed to carrying out the shooting, Utah&#8217;s governor Spencer Cox has told US media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Suspect Tyler Robinson, 22, was taken into custody some 33 hours after Kirk, a 31-year-old right-wing activist, was shot dead in Orem on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/utah-governor-alleged-kirk-shooter-cooperating-authorities\/story?id=125552756\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 jZoZnB\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Speaking to ABC News<\/a>, Cox, a Republican, said people around Mr Robinson had been co-operating with the investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Cox appeared on various US news outlets on Sunday morning, where he also reiterated concerns regarding social media in the aftermath of Kirk&#8217;s death. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The governor was also asked about a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/09\/13\/us\/kirk-killing-suspect-online-chat.html\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 jZoZnB\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New York Times report<\/a> alleging Mr Robinson had spoken to others after the shooting via the Discord messaging platform, including allegations that he joked about being the gunman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Cox told ABC News: &#8220;All we can confirm is that those conversations definitely were happening, and they did not believe it was actually him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;It was, it was all joking until, until he, you know, until he admitted that it actually was him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Mr Robinson was arrested on Thursday night after surrendering to police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Kirk was speaking at Utah Valley University at an open-air event held by Turning Point USA &#8211; the organisation he co-founded &#8211; when he was shot and killed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The event was part of the American Comeback Tour, which was a speaking engagement that took him to several college campuses throughout the US.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Cox previously told the Wall Street Journal that Mr Robinson, a Utah native, was &#8220;deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">When questioned on it during CNN&#8217;s State of the Union programme on Sunday, he said the information was offered by the suspect&#8217;s friends and family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;There&#8217;s so much more that we&#8217;re learning and so much that we will learn,&#8221; he explained, adding that when official charges are filed, there will be &#8220;much more evidence and information available then&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The governor said among those co-operating with authorities is Mr Robinson&#8217;s roommate, who he said was also his partner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">He said the partner did not have have any knowledge about the alleged shooting, had been &#8220;incredibly co-operative&#8221; and was working with investigators &#8220;right now&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">He also confirmed that the partner was currently &#8220;transitioning from male to female&#8221;, but, when asked by CNN, said that authorities do not yet know if that is relevant to the investigation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">An affidavit from the state of Utah confirms that Mr Robinson was arrested on suspicion of the crimes of aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm, and obstruction of justice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">He is currently being held without bail at Utah County Jail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;We&#8217;re interviewing all kinds of people &#8211; everyone that knows him &#8211; and trying to learn more about what the motive actually was,&#8221; Cox said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Following Kirk&#8217;s death, Cox has been prominent in calling for unity in a bid to ease political tensions, and has made repeated comments criticising social media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">He previously called social media a &#8220;cancer&#8221; and told CNN the US had &#8220;to get phones out of the classrooms&#8221; and better efforts to hold platform owners to account.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">He called Kirk&#8217;s shooting a &#8220;direct assault on America&#8221; and said Americans needed to &#8220;look in the mirror and decide, are we going to try to make it better, or are we going to make it worse?&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charlie Kirk&#8217;s alleged killer is &#8220;not co-operating&#8221; with authorities and has not confessed to carrying out the shooting,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-22253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}