Less than two days after right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a Utah Valley University event, authorities had a suspect in custody who they believe to be the person behind the shooting, per CNN. After the suspect, whose name is Tyler Robinson, was found, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox spoke out about the identity of the suspect.
In a video that went viral soon after he spoke at a press conference about Kirk’s murder and the ensuing manhunt for the suspect, Cox admits who he had “hoped” the killer was. And, spoiler alert, it wasn’t someone who looked like him, a white male American. He went as far to even say he had hoped it wasn’t “one of us.” To be fair, that line is at first in reference to himself and other Utah residents, but the message is clear.
Gov. Spencer Cox admitted that he hoped Charlie Kirk’s killer was not from the U.S.
In a clip from the press conference, Cox emotionally explains how he learned about the spect in the shooting, though Robinson has not been convicted of any crimes related to Kirk’s death at this time. Cox says that, although there had been presumptions ahead of time about who killed Kirk, the suspect is someone he had not expected it to be at all.
“For 33 hours, I was praying that, if this had to happen here, that it wouldn’t be one of us,” Cox says in the clip. “That somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country. Sadly, that prayer was not answered the way I had hoped for.”
In the comments under the clip, which was shared on YouTube, one user wrote that they believe Cox wanted to be able to place the blame of the shooting on an “immigrant or a ninja” to help “further divide” the country. Someone else commented, “He wanted the man to be brown.”
In the longer version of the press conference clip making its way around the internet, Cox gives more details about the shooter and the shell casings left behind at the scene on Utah Valley University’s campus. One shell casing reportedly said, according to USA Today, “Hey fascist! Catch!“
Another casing said, in an apparent taunt, “If you read this, you are gay LMAO.”
After Robinson’s arrest, more details about the 22-year-old came out, like the fact that his family was likely Republican and he had once dressed in a Halloween costume that involved Donald Trump’s image. Despite some of those who supported Kirk believing that the shooter was someone from a different political party or a different race altogether, judging by Cox’s comments, Robinson was the last person they expected.
