Puzzle over motives of alleged shooter who ‘confessed to his dad’

But the search for the killer of conservative icon Charlie Kirk ended not with a dramatic shootout but a quiet family drama on Thursday night as a father convinced his fugitive son to give himself up to the police, and 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, a video game obsessive studying to become an electrician, was taken into custody.

FBI director Kash Patel – who had faced criticism for earlier incorrectly stating they had a suspect in custody – said that “in 33 hours, we have made historic progress for Charlie”. But those 33 hours were also marked by false claims, incendiary rhetoric and a growing fear that the United States of America was, not for the first time, tearing itself apart.

At 8.29am on Wednesday, Robinson drove his grey Dodge Charger on to the Utah Valley University campus before scaling stairwells and making his way on to the roof of a building about 400ft from the tent where Kirk was due to speak.

At 12.09pm, Kirk arrived and started the event. As is usual on his speaking tours, he invited members of the audience to challenge his views and started engaging in robust debate. Fourteen minutes later, just as he was answering a question about gun control and mass shootings, a single shot was fired, hitting Kirk in the neck. As he was rushed into a vehicle, the crowd of about 3,000 people scattered.

Moments later, surveillance footage captured a person running across the roof of a campus building and jumping on to a grassy area nearby, then fleeing into a wooded area carrying a bag. Police later recovered a bolt-action rifle wrapped in a towel from that wooded area on the campus.

FBI agents were at the scene within 16 minutes of the shooting, joining local law enforcement as they began scouring the crime scene for forensic evidence and searching local neighbourhoods for the perpetrator. Within hours, Kirk’s death had been confirmed by President Donald Trump, and by 4.21pm local time, FBI director Patel wrote on X that the suspect was in custody.

But Patel had written the post without vetting it with his team. Two people initially held in connection with the shooting had been released without charge.

Even as law enforcement teams struggled to find out the identity, ideology, motive or location of the shooter, a visibly angry Trump released a video on Truth Social blaming the “radical left” for rhetoric that he said was “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today”.

He implied that his administration would not just hunt down the shooter but “will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organisations that funded and supported it”.

While Trump was hunting for political enemies, the FBI was still no closer to finding the actual suspect, despite deploying planes, hostage rescue experts and their best forensic teams.

The next morning, a furious Patel gathered 200 FBI agents for an online meeting, the New York Times reported, and issued a profanity-laced rant taking them to task on the slow progress of the manhunt. He was already under fire, accused of inexperience and mismanagement during his tenure, and was desperate to prove he was up to the job.

As part of his purge when he took the helm of the agency, Patel had fired the highly experienced head of the field office in Salt Lake City, and even some Republican loyalists had started to question his competency in the job.

But while the blame game was playing out in Washington, a disturbing family drama was soon unfolding in St George, a small town in Utah about 250 miles south from the site of the shooting in Orem.

At 10am on Thursday morning, the FBI finally released two photos of the suspect: a young man in a cap and sunglasses wearing a black long-sleeved T-shirt and blue jeans. Later that day, they would release two more images and the video from the roof of the campus building.

One man looked at the images and recognised his own son: Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old in his third year of an electrician course at a local college.

The father tried to convince his son to turn himself in, US media reported, but Robinson said he would rather kill himself. The father then contacted a youth pastor known to the family, who had links to law enforcement, who helped convince Robinson to give himself up.

The pastor advised Robinson and his father to remain where they were while he contacted the local sheriff’s office, who came and made the arrest.

Now Americans are poring over the details of Robinson’s life, trying to understand how he became the latest in a string of violent extremists to target the country’s public figures.

Robinson came from a conservative Mormon family, with both parents registered as Republicans in a state that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Robinson was registered to vote but was unaffiliated with any party and did not cast a ballot in last year’s election.

At a recent family dinner, Robinson allegedly talked about Kirk’s upcoming American Comeback tour at Utah Valley University and how he believed Kirk “was full of hate and spreading hate”.

The oldest of three sons, Robinson excelled at school and received a scholarship to Utah State University but dropped out after one semester for reasons not disclosed.

Neighbours have said he was a smart yet quiet kid, immersed in video games and online culture. Part of the investigation into motive will centre on the meaning of the symbols and messages Robinson allegedly wrote on the bullet casings.

The most overtly political said “Hey fascist! Catch!”, but gamers noted that it was followed by an up arrow, right arrow, and three down arrows – a combination linked to a game called Helldivers 2, in which players fight on behalf of a fascist state. It would be very hard, experts said, to attempt to parse Robinson’s political ideology from the messages.

The motive won’t make any difference to Robinson’s case – if found guilty he will almost certainly face the death penalty. But for the rest of America, this may be the most important part of the investigation.

Photograph by Utah Governor’s Office via AP