• Tyler Robinson had enrolled in electrical apprenticeship.
• Governor credits suspect’s family with bringing him to justice.
• Republicans, Democrats point fingers across partisan divide. 

The Utah trade school student jailed on suspicion of fatally shooting conservative activist Charlie Kirk faces formal charges next week, according to the governor, following an act of violence widely seen as a foreboding inflection point in US politics.

Tyler Robinson, 22, was arrested on Thursday night after relatives and a family friend alerted authorities that he had implicated himself in the crime, Governor Spencer Cox said on Friday, opening a press conference with the words, “We got him.”

The arrest capped a 33-hour manhunt for the lone suspect in Wednesday’s killing, which President Donald Trump has called a “heinous assassination.”

Kirk, co-founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA and a staunch Trump ally, was gunned down by a single rifle shot fired from a rooftop during an outdoor event attended by 3,000 people at Utah Valley University in Orem, about 40 miles south (65km) of Salt Lake City.

The sniper made his getaway in the ensuing pandemonium, captured in graphic detail in video clips that circulated widely on the internet and television news reports.

A bolt-action rifle believed to be the murder weapon was found nearby, and police released images from surveillance cameras showing a “person of interest” wearing dark clothing and sunglasses.

A break in the case came when a relative and a family friend alerted the local sheriff’s office that he had “confessed to them or implied that he had committed” the murder, Cox said.

“I want to thank the family members of Tyler Robinson, who did the right thing in this case and were able to bring him into law enforcement,” the governor said.

Security camera footage and evidence gathered from the suspect’s profile on the chat and streaming platform Discord also helped investigators link him to the crime, Cox said.

Robinson, a third-year student in the electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College, part of Utah’s public university system, was taken into custody at his parents’ house, about 260 miles (420 km) southwest of the crime scene.

Investigators on Friday evening collected additional forensic evidence from Robinson’s apartment in St George, about 5 miles (8 km) from his parents’ home near the Arizona border.

He was held on suspicion of aggravated murder and other charges that were expected to be formally filed in court early next week, the governor said.

‘Watershed in American history’

The killing has stirred outrage among Kirk’s supporters and condemnation of political violence from across the ideological spectrum.

“It is an attack on all of us,” Governor Cox said, calling Kirk’s murder a “watershed in American history” and comparing it to the rash of US political assassinations of the 1960s.

Cox declined to discuss possible motives for the killing. But in describing inscriptions investigators found on ammunition recovered from the scene, he said one of the casings bore the message: “Here fascist! CATCH!”

“I think that speaks for itself,” he said in response to reporters’ questions.

State records show Robinson was a registered voter but not affiliated with any political party. But a relative told investigators that Robinson had grown more political in recent years and had once discussed with another family member their dislike for Kirk and his viewpoints, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Many Republicans, including Trump, have been quick to lash out at the political left, accusing liberals of fomenting anti-conservative vitriol that would encourage a kindred spirit to cross the line into violence.

Democrats, decrying political violence more generally while calling for stronger gun laws, have countered that Trump himself routinely uses inflammatory rhetoric to demonise his political foes, judges and the mainstream media.

Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the symbology found on the bullet casings suggests the shooter was part of the so-called Groyper movement, associated with far-right activist and commentator Nick Fuentes.

Right, left or crazy?

“It’s an eclectic ideological movement marked by video game memes, anti-gay, Nick Fuentes white supremacy, irony,” she said. “It certainly leans right, but it is quite eclectic.”

She added: “In a way, the ideological beliefs of the shooter don’t matter. What matters is how they’re taken by society. And if our society chooses to keep pointing fingers, whether the person turns out to be right, left or just unstable, then the violence will grow from the pointing of fingers, regardless of the act itself.”

Kleinfeld said most perpetrators of political violence were not clearly on one ideological side or another, but typically driven by “a hodgepodge of conspiracy beliefs and mental illness.”

“So it wouldn’t be surprising at all if this person was a person of the far right, if this person was a person who held a variety of different beliefs and was sort of unclassifiable,” she added.

Kirk’s murder comes amid the most sustained period of US political violence in decades. Reuters has documented more than 300 cases of politically motivated violent acts across the ideological spectrum since Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump himself has survived two attempts on his life, one that left him with a grazed ear during a campaign event in July 2024 and another two months later foiled by federal agents.

Democrats have fallen victim, too. In April, an arsonist broke into Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence and set it on fire while the family was inside.

Earlier this year, a gunman posing as a police officer in Minnesota murdered Democratic state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and shot Democratic state Senator John Hoffman and his wife.

In her first public comments since her spouse was slain, Erika Kirk vowed in a tearful but defiant video message on Friday evening that “the movement built by my husband will not die” but grow stronger.

Speaking from the studio of his radio-podcast show, she urged young people to join Turning Point, exalting her husband as a fallen political hero who “now and for all eternity will stand at his savior’s side wearing the glorious crown of a martyr”.

WASHINGTON: Group of Seven nations’ finance ministers discussed in a call on Friday further sanctions on Russia and possible tariffs on countries that they consider “enabling” its war in Ukraine, as the US called on its allies to impose tariffs on purchasers of Russian oil.

Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne chaired the G7 meeting, which was held to discuss further measures to increase pressure on Russia to end its war against Ukraine, according to a statement from Canada, the head of the rolling G7 presidency.

The ministers agreed to speed up discussions to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s defense, and discussed a “wide range of possible economic measures to increase pressure on Russia, including further sanctions and trade measures, such as tariffs, on those enabling Russia’s war effort,” the statement said.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told finance ministers during the call that they should join the US in imposing tariffs on countries that purchase oil from Russia, Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a separate statement following the meeting.

“Only with a unified effort that cuts off the revenues funding Putin’s war machine at the source will we be able to apply sufficient economic pressure to end the senseless killing,” Bessent and Greer said.

Bessent and Greer welcomed commitments made during the call to increase sanctions pressure and explore using immobilised Russian sovereign assets to benefit Ukraine’s defence, according to the joint statement.

Earlier in the day, a US Treasury spokesperson called on G7 and European Union allies to impose “meaningful tariffs” on goods from China and India to pressure them to halt their purchases of Russian oil.

President Donald Trump has imposed an extra 25% tariff on imports from India to pressure New Delhi to halt its purchases of discounted Russian crude oil, bringing total punitive duties on Indian goods to 50% and souring trade negotiations between the two democracies.

But Trump has refrained from imposing additional tariffs on Chinese imports over China’s purchases of Russian oil, as his administration navigates a delicate trade truce with Beijing.

Bessent is due to travel to Madrid on Friday for another round of talks with his Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, that will cover trade issues, Washington’s demands for Chinese-owned TikTok to divest its US operations, and anti-money laundering issues.

Trump earlier on Friday said that his patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin was running out, but stopped short of threatening new sanctions during a Fox News interview.

Trump expressed frustration about Putin’s failure to halt the war. He said sanctions on banks and oil were an option to increase pressure on Russia, but added that European countries also needed to participate.

“We’re going to have to come down very, very strong,” Trump said.

China strongly condemned the passage of US and British warships through the Taiwan Strait, shortly after announcing that its newest aircraft carrier had completed a transit through the same waterway.

“On September 12, the US destroyer Higgins and the UK frigate Richmond sailed through the Taiwan Strait, engaging in disturbance and provocation,” said Senior Colonel Shi Yi, spokesperson for the Chinese military’s Eastern Theater Command, in a statement Friday.

He added that Chinese naval and air forces were dispatched to track and monitor the vessels, stressing that such actions “undermine peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

Beijing considers Taiwan part of its territory and claims jurisdiction over the strait, while the US, UK, and other nations maintain that the waterway constitutes international waters open to all vessels.

China also confirmed that its latest aircraft carrier, the Fujian, had passed through the strait to conduct trials ahead of entering service.

The transit comes a week after Australian and Canadian warships also sailed through the strait, prompting similar criticism from Beijing.

China has in recent years intensified military, economic, and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan, repeatedly warning it has not ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control.

Taiwan’s defense ministry, meanwhile, continues to report regular sightings of Chinese warships, drones, and fighter jets around its waters.

On Saturday, the Taiwanese defence ministry said it had detected 31 Chinese military aircraft and 13 Chinese naval vessels around the island since early Friday — the highest number in a 24-hour period since May.

The ministry said “25 out of 31 sorties crossed the median line and entered Taiwan’s northern, central and southwestern ADIZ”, referring to the island’s air defence identification zone.

“We have monitored the situation and responded,” it added.