More than 11,000 tips shared. Hundreds of the nation’s top agents and Utah officers searching. And 33 hours spent trying to track down the suspect who allegedly killed conservative political pundit Charlie Kirk.
In the end, though, it was a family member and a friend of 22-year-old Tyler James Robinson who ultimately called police and delivered him to law enforcement in southern Utah.
[More: Interactive timeline of the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University.]
Robinson was arrested late Thursday after he drove more than 260 miles south to his hometown of Washington City in the wake of allegedly firing a single shot that hit and killed Kirk at Utah Valley University, where Kirk had been speaking.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said later in a news conference that the family member and a friend who helped police catch Robinson “did the right thing.”
Cox said Robinson was taken back north and was being held in the Utah County Jail.
Robinson “had become more political in recent years,” the governor said, and told a family member that Kirk was coming to Utah Valley University and “talked about why they didn’t like him and the viewpoints that he had.”
The Utah County Attorney’s Office will lead the prosecution of Robinson “from a Utah standpoint,” Utah Attorney General Derek Brown said in an interview Friday. Brown said his office is handling the coordination between local, state and federal officials and that he expects charges in the case to be filed in the next 48 to 72 hours.
Here’s everything we know about Robinson:
(Utah County Sheriff’s Office) A jail booking photo shows Tyler Robinson, whom authorities accuse of shooting Charlie Kirk.
Political affiliation
Voter records show Robinson had not declared a party affiliation.
Both of his parents are registered Republicans.
Education
At the time of his arrest, Robinson was a third-year student in the electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College in St. George, according to the Utah System of Higher Education, which oversees all public universities and colleges in the state.
Dixie Tech confirmed that in a statement, too, adding: “We aren’t able to provide any additional information due to federal student privacy laws.”
A statement from the state system said Robinson also received concurrent enrollment credit through Utah Tech University, also in St. George, while in high school.
“Our campuses foster exploration, learning and the respectful exchange of diverse viewpoints,” the system said in its first statement Friday. “Attempts to silence or intimidate those voices have no place here. We will continue working to ensure our students, faculty and guests can safely express their perspectives.”
The governor confirmed, too, that he was never a student at UVU.
Steve Dunham, spokesperson for Washington County School District, confirmed that Robinson was a student there from 2008 to 2021, when he graduated from Pine View High School.
Posts and photos of Robinson from his mother’s Facebook account, which has since been taken down, described Tyler as an intelligent student. One video featured Robinson reading a $32,000 scholarship offer from Utah State University.
USU confirmed in a statement Friday that Robinson “briefly attended” the northern Utah school for one semester in 2021.
He was at the main Logan campus before taking a leave of absence, spokesperson Amanda DeRito said. “He was a pre-engineering major, so he took courses that would have been part of that major,” she added.
What were Robinson’s interests?
Several pictures on the Facebook page of Robinson’s mom, before it was deactivated, had shown the family hunting and fishing.
A spokesperson for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, citing privacy rules, said the agency could not release information on whether Robinson ever applied for a hunting license in Utah.
Robinson’s social media profile appears to be sparse. As of Friday, The Salt Lake Tribune could not locate any accounts for Robinson on Facebook, Instagram or X.
What those who know Robinson are saying
Jade Ruybal was in the same graduating class as Robinson at Pine View High School.
In an interview via text message, she said she and Robinson shared a few classes together — including band, language arts and math — and were friends, but they stopped talking after graduation.
She remembers Robinson in high school as someone who was “really smart, always had good grades and funny. Always there when you needed him to be.”
Processing the news of Robinson’s arrest, she said, has been “surreal.” Ruybal said Robinson could be “a bit odd” or “nerdy” at times, and that “he’d just know random things.”
“He was the quiet kid if you didn’t know him,” Ruybal wrote. “But at least to me I thought he was an amazing friend.”
Kristin Schwiermann, who lives three doors down from the home where Robinson and his family live, said she’s known him for 16 years.
She worked at Riverside Elementary as head custodian while Robinson and at least one sibling were there. She described them as “very good kids” and a “fun, loving family.”
Schwiermann “wouldn’t have even guessed” Robinson as the alleged shooter.
“It shocks me,” she said, “because he ... carried himself like he knew who he was, and he didn’t act anything like I would think somebody like that would act.”
Jaida Funk, who lives just down the street from Robinson’s parents, said she immediately recognized her longtime friend and former schoolmate when she saw his picture flash on screen from a news outlet.
She has known him since kindergarten, she said, and they attended the same schools until she left Pine View High School during her sophomore year to attend a different high school. She was surprised to learn he was a suspect in the Kirk shooting because that seemed so out of character, she said.
“He was quiet, super smart and the type of student that teachers really like because he was respectful to everyone,” Funk said. “He was not real social but he would still talk to crowds and seemed comfortable talking with everyone. I don’t know what could have happened to make him do” what he is suspected of doing.
Whenever she had a project at school, Funk added, she would gravitate to Robinson because he was so intelligent and easy to work with. And even though she liked working alone and didn’t have a lot of friends at the time, Funk said, she could always count on him.
“He had a lot of leadership qualities,” she said. “There was an energy about him in the way he spoke, treated other people and acted in general. He was very respectful and got along with everyone. He was not a problem starter.”
Funk, who now works at an area day care center, said she lost contact with Robinson a few years ago but said her younger sister was attending Dixie Technical College with him.
Who Robinson isn’t
In a post on Facebook, the Washington County Attorney’s Office sought to debunk a story circulating online that Robinson is related to an officer in the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
Robinson, the post read, “is NOT related to Washington County law enforcement! There are multiple people with the same names.”
Also circulating online are photos purporting to show Robinson speaking at political events, wearing a T-shirt representing the Democratic Socialists of America. A spokesperson for DSA’s national office told The Tribune that those photos are not of Robinson. The spokesperson said Robinson is not a member of any DSA chapter.
The organization’s Salt Lake City chapter referred all questions to the national outfit.
Utah State University similarly cautioned against attacks on other students with the same name, saying many were wrongly being identified on social media as the suspect.
The search for the shooting suspect
Utah activist George Zinn, 71, had been taken into custody shortly after the shooting. Police say that was on suspicion of obstruction of justice. He was later released.
“When they started interrogating him, they could tell it wasn’t him” that fired the gun, UVU spokesperson Scott Trotter previously said.
A second man was also briefly detained and then released. Law enforcement released his name, and his parents said Zachariah Qureshi has been facing threats since, despite not being involved in the attack.
The FBI had released two images of a person of interest, whom authorities described as college-age, and whom they have since identified as Robinson. The images showed a man in a black T-shirt, blue jeans, gray hat and black sunglasses.
(FBI) The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Salt Lake City office released images of someone they describe as a person of interest in the shooting death of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University in Orem on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025.
(FBI) The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Salt Lake City office released images of someone they describe as a person of interest in the shooting death of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University in Orem on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025.
At a news briefing on Thursday morning, the FBI and state Department of Public Safety said the shooter arrived at Wednesday’s event at 11:52 a.m. and used stairwells to access the top of a campus building. After firing one shot, the shooter jumped from the building and fled into a neighborhood, police said.
Law enforcement officials said they found a bolt-action rifle in a wooded area during their search.
Police say they identified Robinson partly by what he was wearing. Initially, camera footage from campus showed Robinson in a maroon shirt and shorts.
Cox said Robinson allegedly changed into dark clothing on the roof of the Losee Center at UVU. The shooter jumped off the building and fled campus, video footage has shown.
Cox said Robinson then drove south toward Washington City, where he and his family have lived for years. When he was later taken into custody, he was wearing the original maroon shirt.
A roommate of Robinson’s also showed law enforcement messages that the two had exchanged on the app Discord, Cox said.
Robinson’s messages were “stating a need to retrieve a rifle from a drop point, leaving a rifle in a bush,” Cox said. “... The messages also referred to engraving bullets, and a mention of a scope and the rifle being unique.”
Tribune reporter Addy Baird contributed to this story.