The trade school student suspected of assassinating right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah university was due in court on Tuesday to face formal charges, appearing by video feed from jail for his first public appearance since the shooting.
Tyler Robinson, 22, is accused of firing the single rifle shot from a rooftop sniper’s nest that pierced Kirk’s neck last Wednesday on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, about 40 miles (65 km) south of Salt Lake City.
The killing, captured in graphic video clips that went viral on the internet, sparked denunciations of political violence across the ideological spectrum but also unleashed a wave of partisan blame-casting and concerns that Kirk’s murder might beget more bloodshed.
Authorities have offered no possible motive for the killing, though Kirk’s wife and other supporters were quick to cast him as a martyr for their cause.
Kirk, co-founder and head of the conservative student movement Turning Point USA and a key ally of President Donald Trump, was speaking at an event attended by 3,000 people when he was gunned down. He died later at a hospital. He was 31.
The suspect, a third-year student of an electrical apprenticeship at a state technical college, initially made good on his getaway in the pandemonium of the shooting.
He was arrested on Thursday night at his parents’ house, some 260 miles (420 km) southwest of the crime scene, after relatives and a family friend alerted authorities that Robinson had implicated himself in the shooting, according to Governor Spencer Cox.
Capping a 33-hour-manhunt, Robinson was booked into Utah County Jail on suspicion of aggravated murder, a felony weapons offense, and obstruction of justice, according to an affidavit filed by investigators.
Cox said the state would be inclined to seek the death penalty should Robinson be convicted but prosecutors would consider the wishes of Kirk’s family before making that decision.
FIRST NEW GLIMPSE OF SUSPECT
Robinson was scheduled to be arraigned on formal charges on Tuesday afternoon in Utah County Justice Court in Provo, but the defendant will appear for the hearing by a video feed from the county lockup in nearby Spanish Fork, officials said.
The Utah County district attorney planned to hold a news briefing to explain the charges a few hours before the hearing. Newly filed court documents accompanying the charges may contain additional information about evidence in the investigation.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Department of Justice would review the case separately to determine whether federal charges should be pursued.
“And of course, if we do, we will also indict and work hand-in-hand with the state to ensure that this horrible human being faces the maximum extent of the law,” Bondi told Fox News on Monday.
