The widow of prominent right-wing activist Charlie Kirk pledged on Friday to carry on her husband’s work, after US authorities announced his alleged assassin had finally been captured.
Investigators had appeared to be making slow progress in the hunt for whoever gunned down US President Donald Trump’s close ally, until they released security camera images of a young man.
“We got him,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox told a news conference on Friday, identifying the suspect as Tyler Robinson, 22, who had reportedly been confronted by his father over the pictures and then turned in.
Photo: AFP
Cox credited assistance from the alleged killer’s family.
“On the evening of Sept. 11, a family member of Tyler Robinson reached out to a family friend, who contacted the Washington County sheriff’s office with information that Robinson had confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident,” he said.
The 31-year-old Kirk was hit by a single bullet while addressing a large crowd at Utah Valley University in the town of Orem on Wednesday.
Kirk was an electrifying presence on the US right, with a huge young following that helped Trump win the election in November last year.
In her first public comments since her spouse was slain, Erika Kirk vowed in a tearful, but defiant video message on Friday evening that “the movement built by my husband will not die,” but grow stronger.
Speaking from the studio of his radio-podcast show, she urged young people to join Turning Point, exalting her husband as a fallen political hero who “now and for all eternity will stand at his savior’s side wearing the glorious crown of a martyr.”
“The evil-doers responsible for my husband’s assassination have no idea what they have done,” she said.
Kirk’s murder has consumed the US for 48 hours, capturing almost all cable news coverage, while Trump has ordered flags to fly at half-mast.
Kirk’s hardline views on race, gender, gun ownership and other hot-button issues made him an intensely divisive figure, although even opponents praised his willingness to debate.
As details about Robinson began to trickle out on Friday, a picture emerged of a young man from a Republican family in St. George, a staunchly conservative city about four hours south of Orem.
“Who would have known that this little skinny guy getting in and out of his car would be able to commit such a heinous act?” said Heather McKnight, a former neighbor who had recently moved out.
Photographs showed the young man — who was in the third year of an electrician apprenticeship — posing with guns and dressed for Halloween in a costume in which he appears to be riding Trump’s shoulders.
Cox said in an interview with CNN broadcast later on Friday that the suspect was radicalized “in a fairly short amount of time,” without elaborating.
Robinson is being held on suspicion of aggravated murder and is expected to be formally charged in the coming days.
Utah has the death penalty for such crimes — a punishment Trump has said he would like imposed.
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