Charlie Kirk shooting suspect captured, confirms Utah governor

A young man from Utah, accused of fatally shooting conservative activist Charlie Kirk during a university forum, was arrested on Friday, Governor Spencer Cox confirmed, bringing an end to a two-day manhunt that heightened national fears over escalating political violence in the United States.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump revealed that a suspect in the fatal shooting of conservative activist Kirk was taken into custody by the law enforcement.

"I think we have him," Trump told Fox News in an interview, adding that a person who knows the suspect had turned him in.

The suspect, identified as Tyler Robinson, had confessed to a family friend — or "implied that he had committed" the murder to that friend – and that person in turn contacted the Washington County sheriff's office on Thursday.

A family member interviewed by investigators said Robinson had become more political recently and spoke in a disparaging manner about Kirk, Cox said. Robinson was taken into custody on Thursday night, about 33 hours after Kirk's murder, FBI Director Kash Patel said at the press conference.

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 University on Wednesday. Trump called the shooting a "heinous assassination."

Kirk's killing has stirred outrage among Kirk's supporters and denunciations of political violence from Democrats, Republicans and foreign governments.

"It is an attack on all of us," Utah's governor said at the press conference, drawing parallels between Kirk's murder and the assassinations of President John Kennedy, his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s.

"It is an attack on the American experiment," the governor said. "It is an attack on our ideals."

The shooting has punctuated the most sustained period of US political violence since the 1970s. Reuters has documented more than 300 cases of politically motivated violent acts across the ideological spectrum since supporters of Trump attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Tracking down the suspect

Previously, US investigators said they had found the bolt-action rifle believed to have been used to kill Kirk — a charismatic 31-year-old credited with building support for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. They released a series of security camera images of a person of interest and asked the public to help identify him.

Investigators spoke to Robinson's roommate, who showed them comments Robinson had made on Discord, a chat and streaming platform popular with gamers, discussing retrieving a rifle from a drop point and then dropping it in a bush wrapped in a towel. That matched the description of the gun recovered after the shooting in a wooded area near campus.

Ammunition found at the scene had been inscribed, Cox said.

Politicians, commentators and amateur sleuths have filled social media and online forums with speculation and blame-casting about the killer's identity and ideology. Cox told reporters he would leave interpretation of the messages on the ammunition to others for now.

Kirk, a well-connected activist, author and podcast host, was friends with Vice President JD Vance, Trump's family and others at the highest echelons of the US government.

Patel, the FBI director, also offered a personal tribute at the news conference: "Rest now brother, we have the watch. I'll see you in Valhalla," he said in closing his remarks, referring to the heavenly reward for warriors in Norse mythology.

Kirk, co-founder and president of the conservative student group Turning Point USA, appeared at Utah Valley on Wednesday as part of a planned 15-event "American Comeback Tour" of US college campuses.