The widow of prominent right-wing activist Charlie Kirk has pledged to carry on her husband’s work, after authorities in the United States announced his alleged assassin had finally been captured.
Investigators had appeared to be making slow progress in the hunt for whoever killed Donald Trump’s close ally, until they released security camera images of a young man on Friday.
“We got him,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox told a news conference, identifying the suspect as Tyler Robinson, 22, who had reportedly been confronted by his father over the pictures and then turned in.
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 a controversial figure on the US right, with a huge young following that helped Trump win the election last November. His 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.
The murder has consumed the US for 48 hours, capturing almost all cable news coverage, while Trump has ordered flags to fly at half-mast. It has also raised questions about the escalating toll of political violence that has spanned the ideological spectrum.
“This is our moment: Do we escalate or do we find an off-ramp?” Cox asked, making an impassioned plea for young people to bridge differences through common ground rather than violence. “It’s a choice.”
‘No idea what they have done’
In her first public remarks since the shooting, a heartbroken Erika Kirk on Friday mourned the loss of “the perfect father … the perfect husband”.
“The evil-doers responsible for my husband’s assassination have no idea what they have done,” she said in a live video address. “You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.
“The movement my husband built will not die. It won’t. I refuse to let that happen,” she said.
She thanked Trump, saying through tears that her husband loved the president, and pledged to keep her husband’s work alive, continuing his campus tour, radio show and podcast.
Kirk was a conservative provocateur who became a powerful political force by rallying young Republican voters, and was a fixture on college campuses, where he invited sometimes-vehement debate on social issues.
He co-founded the nonprofit political organisation Turning Point USA, based in Arizona. He had been speaking at a campus debate on the first stop of his “American Comeback Tour” at the time of Wednesday’s shooting.
He was taking questions from an audience member about gun violence at Utah Valley University when he was killed.
Who is suspect Tyler Robinson?
Details about Robinson’s life were just beginning to emerge on Friday. Governor Cox said the suspect had lived for a long time with his family in Washington County in the southwest corner of Utah, near the Arizona and Nevada borders.
The suspect did not appear to have any criminal history, according to state records. He was a registered voter but was not affiliated with a political party, according to voter records.
At the time of the shooting, he was a third-year student in the electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College, part of Utah’s public university system. He had previously earned a four-year scholarship to Utah State University in Logan, but left after one semester.
Authorities, who have yet to reveal a motive, described evidence they said shed potential light on the slaying.
Ammunition found with the weapon was engraved with taunting, anti-fascist and meme culture messages, including one bullet casing that said, “Hey, fascist! Catch!” Cox said.
In addition, a roommate shared with authorities messages from the chatting app Discord that involved a contact named Tyler and discussed a rifle wrapped in a towel, engraved bullets and a scope, the governor said. A Mauser .30-caliber, bolt-action rifle was found in a towel in a wooded area along the path investigators believe Robinson took after firing a single shot from a distant roof and then fleeing.
The clothes the suspect wore when confronted by law enforcement late on Thursday matched what he had on when he arrived on campus, and a family member confirmed he drove a grey Dodge Challenger like the one seen in surveillance video that recorded Robinson driving to the university the day of the shooting, Cox said.
Robinson’s father recognised him from the photos released by the FBI and told him to turn himself in.
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