A former high school friend of Charlie Kirk’s assassin, Tyler Robinson, described him as “pretty left on everything” and said he was the “only member of his family that was really leftist.”
“The rest of his family was very hard Republican,” the friend said in a phone interview Friday, asking to remain anonymous, The Guardian reported.
The friend said Robinson’s political views became more extreme around his sophomore year. “He would always just be ranting and arguing about them,” the friend said.
They recalled spending time together playing video games and noted that the bullet engraving with the arrows was a reference to Helldivers 2. The friend explained that the arrows specifically pointed to “calling in a big bomb that exists” in the game “called the 500 kilogram.”
When the friend saw Friday’s news, he said he was stunned. “I knew he [Robinson] had strong political views, but I never thought it would even go near that far.”
President Donald Trump announced early Friday that the suspect has been arrested for the assassination of Kirk on the Utah Valley University campus during an event earlier this week.
“I think, with a high degree of certainty, we have him,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” during a live interview at the cable giant’s Manhattan studio, saying he heard just minutes before his 8 a.m. interview.
“Somebody who was very close to him turned him in,” the president said, saying it was relayed through “a minister who was involved with law enforcement.”
“I hope he’s going to be found guilty, and I hope he gets the death penalty. What he did — Charlie Kirk was the finest person and he didn’t deserve this.”
Trump did not name Robinson, who was identified later by the FBI during a press briefing.
Authorities and sources told the New York Post that the suspect was thought to have fired a single shot from a high place about 200 yards away from the tent where Kirk, 31, was sitting at the university’s Losee Center.
At first, reports said that the suspect was a gunman in jeans, a black shirt, and a black vest sitting on top of a structure east of the school’s library with a long rifle.
Kirk, who co-founded Turning Point USA and has two kids, had just answered a question from someone in the audience regarding mass massacres by transgender individuals at the outdoor gathering on the Orem, Utah campus, when he was shot once in the throat.
The conservative influencer jerked back and seemed to be in pain as he grabbed his neck. A single gunshot could be heard on mulitple videos of the horrific incident, sending thousands of people into a panic, according to dramatic video from the event.
“I didn’t watch,” Trump told Fox News on Friday of the shockingly graphic videos.
“I heard about it… I would have never made a good doctor, let me put it that way,” the president said. “I mean, I heard enough. I didn’t want to watch it… I didn’t want to remember Charlie that way.”
The manhunt included officers from at least four different law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, the Orem Police, the Utah Department of Public Safety, and the Utah Valley University Police.
Hours after the brutal murder, FBI Director Kash Patel indicated that a person of interest was in custody. He later said that the person had been released after being questioned.
That person was not Robinson.
The FBI also set up a tip line on Wednesday night, asking those who were there to come forward with more information and video of the occurrence. On Thursday, they offered a reward of up to $100,000 for information that would help identify and catch the culprit.
“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” Trump wrote in a mournful post on Truth Social after news of Kirk’s death spread.