What we know about Tyler Robinson, the suspect who allegedly killed Charlie Kirk

Tyler Robinson, the 22 -year -old accused, accused of having killed the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, grew up in a calm and united community in Washington, Utah, where most of the neighbors have attended the same church in the neighborhood and know each other by their first name.

“I am shocked,” said Kristin Schwiermann, a 66 -year -old neighbor. “It’s not the kid I knew.”

Like most people in the community, Robinson, his parents and his two brothers attended the church of the Church of Jesus Christ in the last days of less than a distance, said Scwiermann.

It was therefore strange for Schwiermann and others when the quiet area filled with strange vans, SUVs and other police cars not marked around 7:30 p.m. Thursday. She wondered if it had something to do with the shooting of Charlie Kirk at the University of Utah Valley, but she had no idea that it would imply Tyler Robinson.

Three doors below, inside the house of Robinson, a drama took place.

Tyler Robinson’s father Matt realized that his son was at the center of a desperate man hunt while images of him in a t-shirt and long-sleeved jeans started to flash through the TV and computer screens on a national scale.

The family called on their bishop of church – also a neighbor – when Robinson threatened to commit suicide, according to a source from the application of laws which was not authorized to discuss the investigation.

This photo published by the office of the Governor of Utah shows Tyler Robinson.

(Office of the Governor of Utah via Associated Press)

Robinson had been close to his parents and two brothers growing up, and often leaving camping or hunting, said Schwiermann. According to public archives, both parents have held hunting licenses.

“They are close, workers and intelligent,” she said.

Robinson frequented Riverside Elementary, about half a million family home and where Schwiermann also worked as chief goalkeeper.

“He was calm, but he had friends in school and he never caused any problems,” said Schwiermann.

He had been regularly active in the church when he was a child, but she said that he was trying there less.

He graduated from Pine View High School in St. George in 2021, and Schwiermann described him as brilliant and good with his school work, which helped him win a scholarship.

His mother, Amber Robinson, wrote on her Facebook page in 2020 on the aptitude test for her son’s college, and published a Robinson video reading a letter for a scholarship.

Robinson attended Utah State University in 2021, where he specialized in engineering, but took leave after a semester.

He then attended the Dixie Technical College, where school officials said he was in the third year of studies in the electrical learning program.

There is no sign that Robinson has a criminal record in the state of Utah, based on his name and date of birth.

Robinson had registered as non -partisan in UTAH, while his two parents were registered Republicans, according to the registration data examined by the Times. His father worked with granite counters and his mother was an approved social worker.

A sympathetic pray in a fortune memorial set up at the siege of Turning Point USA in Phoenix after the death by ball by Charlie Kirk.

(Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)

At a press conference announcing Robinson’s arrest on Friday, UTAH governor Spencer Cox said that a family member told investigators: “Robinson had become more political in recent years”, and had expressed his aversion to Kirk, who, Robinson, said “full of hatred” and “spread hatred”.

Investigators still examine the evidence and try to determine a reason in the massacre.

In addition to a lock rifle which was abandoned in a wooded area, the investigators also recovered ammunition which carried various markings, according to the authorities.

The engraving on a ball box in the rifle Read: “Fascist hey! Catch!” According to Cox.

Other coils brought references to the same online discussion rooms, including “Opinions, Bloges, Owo, what is it?” And “If you read this, you are Gay Lmao.” One was engraved with lyrics of an Italian anti-fascism of the Second World War

Asked about the motive of the shooter, Cox suggested that the marking “Hey fascist” clearly showed the shooter’s intention: “I think that speaks of himself,” he said.

But the experts of extremism said that it was too early to describe a reason, in particular based on the brands on the ammunition.

“It is increasingly difficult to immediately attribute motivation because many young solitary attackers are often a mixture of grievances, mental distress and aggressions taken up in social and online circles,” said Brian Levin, emeritus professor at Cal State San Bernardino and founder of his center for the study of hatred.

“Verbiage, memes, targeting, raw humor and cultural references which are immediately available on telegraph patterns for violent symbolic attacks, but can also be amorphous or disjoint,” he said.

Joan Donovan, Asst. The professor of journalism at the University of Boston and an expert in extremism, said that the initial rumors on the balls of bullets marked by antifa or transidological symbols seemed too obvious.

The messages on the envelopes reminded Donovan other recent manifests and shooters who used memes, such as the shooter of Christchurch, New Zealand 2019 who killed 51 people in a mosque and an Islamic center.

“With the memes, the message was really about talking to others would be shooters,” said Donovan. “It was not a question of communicating with the media or even communicating a serious message.”

The engravings on Robinson’s sockets appear as a meli-melo of messages that do not integrate comfortably, said Donovan. In online misogynist circles, a person who is negotiated in these types of cynical messages could be described as “Black Pilled” according to Donovan.

“It is both the impostor and laughing at the same time,” said Donovan. “When we talk about young” blacks “and those who are simply upset by the whole system, it is logical that you have someone to engrave balls with very nihilist storms.”

Los Angeles Times Anita Chabria and Jenny Jarvie staff have contributed to this report.