Charlie Kirk murder suspect Tyler Robinson captured after 2-day manhunt
Words were engraved on ammunition found at the shooting scene, including a meme reference inscribed on the bullet that killed Kirk
A young Utah man suspected of killing the conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a university forum has been taken into custody, as US leaders reacted with sorrow and frustration over the latest outbreak of political violence sweeping the country.
“We got him,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox told reporters at a briefing on Friday, expressing a sense of relief after an intense manhunt by local and federal law enforcement that followed Kirk’s murder on Wednesday by a sniper at Utah Valley University in Orem.
The suspect, identified as Tyler Robinson, 22, was taken into custody on Thursday night, about 33 hours after the shooting, FBI Director Kash Patel told reporters. The agency had received more than 11,000 tips as of Friday morning, the most since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, he said.
Robinson was captured after he confessed to a family friend, or “implied that he had committed” the murder to that friend, the governor said. That person in turn contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday.
Law enforcement officials had previously released a series of security camera images of a person of interest and asked the public to help identify him.
FBI releases images of suspect in Charlie Kirk shooting
Kirk, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, was killed by a single bullet as he spoke onstage at an outdoor amphitheatre at Utah Valley. Trump called the shooting a “heinous assassination”.