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.