Tag: utah

“Hey guys, I have bad news for you all … it was me at UVU yesterday.” Thus Tyler Robinson messaged his friends on Discord, seemingly apologizing for murdering Charlie Kirk. “I’m sorry for all of this.”

I obtained this and other Discord chats I’ve decided to publish (the legacy news media, as usual, refuses), along with new information I’ve learned about Robinson from the people who knew him best.

Trump and company portray the alleged Utah shooter as left-wing and liberals portray him as right-wing. The federal conclusion will inevitably be that he was a so-called Nihilist Violent Extremist (NVE); meanwhile, the crackdown has already begun, as I reported yesterday. The country is practically ready to go to war.

“It’s been so terrible and seeing it from an inside perspective is so frustrating,” a friend of Robinson’s since middle school told me. The childhood friend, who asked not to be named for fear of threats, provided me with the above non-public photo of Robinson on a camping trip (a favorite activity of his) to corroborate their relationship.

“I think the main thing that’s caused so much confusion is that he was always generally apolitical for the most part,” the friend told me. “That’s the big thing, he just never really talked politics which is why it’s so frustrating.”

The picture that emerges bears little resemblance to the media version. Robinson, I am told, though quiet, was a well-liked person with a supportive family. The friend group who he interacted with on Discord, far from some kind of militia camp or Antifa bunker it’s been portrayed as, represented a range of different political views but mostly talked video games.

Yesterday, FBI Director Kash Patel said in an interview that Robinson “subscribed to left-wing ideology,” citing his family’s remarks to investigators. But those close to Robinson say there was a lot his family didn’t know about him.

“Their ideas are based on someone they didn’t fully understand,” the childhood friend told me. Though the family was generally supportive of Robinson (a claim corroborated by his mother’s Facebook account, brimming with praise for Tyler) they didn’t seem to know about his relationship with a transgender person named Lance, the friend said.

When I asked if his family would have been accepting, the friend replied: “I don’t think even Tyler knew the answer to that question, which is why he kept it so low key between themselves.”

Tyler’s bisexuality, the friend said, was coupled with openness on LGBT issues. But his wasn’t some cookie cutter lefty position on every or even most issues, his friends say.

“Obviously he’s okay with gay and trans people having a right to exist, but also believes in the Second Amendment,” the friend said, referring to the right to bear arms.

The friend described Robinson as fairly typical of a young man his age from Utah: someone who loved the outdoors, was a gamer, and into guns.

“To all of us he just seemed like a simple guy who liked playing games like Sea of Thieves, Deep Rock Galactic and Helldivers 2, loved to fish and loved to camp,” the friend said. “It really did seem like that’s all he was about.”

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Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said the suspected assassin of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk left behind a note, and confirmed reports that the suspect held left-wing political views.

“Clearly a leftist ideology,” Cox told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Cox said the information obtained about the viewpoints of suspect Tyler Robinson “comes from the people around him, his family members and friends.”

Cox also confirmed that the suspect may have left behind a note but said that those “are things that are still being processed for accuracy and verification and will be included in charging documents.”

The governor said the suspect’s partner is transgender, which some officials have pointed to as a sign that Robinson was targeting Kirk for his political views. Authorities have not publicly said whether it is relevant as they investigate Robinson’s motive.

Cox told CNN that Robinson’s roommate and “romantic partner” is “a male transitioning to female.”

“I can say that he has been incredibly cooperative, this partner has been very cooperative, had no idea that this was happening,” he said, referring to the roommate.

Cox also told NBC News that Robinson, 22, became more radical after he dropped out of Utah State University.

“It seemed to happen kind of after that—after he moved back to the southern part of Utah,” he told NBC News. “Clearly, there was a lot of gaming going on, friends that have confirmed that there was kind of that deep, dark internet, Reddit culture and these other dark places of the internet where this person was going deep. You saw that on the casings … the memeification that is happening in our society today.”

Robinson, Cox told NBC, is not cooperating with authorities. However, they have obtained information from friends, acquaintances, and family members.

Last week, Cox said in a news conference that the suspect had engraved messages on bullets, including anti-fascist messages and one that appeared to make a trolling reference to the “furry” subculture. One message also appeared to be a reference to a move used in the video game “Helldivers 2.”

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