What we know and do not know

The suspect’s roommate in the murder of Charlie Kirk had a question.

“For what?”

“I was tired of his hatred,” wrote Tyler Robinson. “A hatred cannot be negotiated.”

On Tuesday, the authorities published messages between Robinson and the roommate of the hours that followed the shooting. The officials said that the nameless roommate was a “biological man” who passed from man to woman and was in a romantic relationship with the accused.

Prosecutors also gave more details that could indicate a possible reason – although there are still many things that are not known.

According to an indictment, Robinson’s mother told the police that during the last year, Robinson had become more political and on the left, “more pro-gay and oriented towards rights”.

And in family conversations before the shooting, Robinson would have accused Kirk of spreading hatred.

The prosecutors say that Robinson left a message to his roommate: “I had the opportunity to leave Charlie Kirk and I will take it.”

During the Tuesday press conference, Utah County Prosecutor Jeff Gray said instead of deleting messages like Robinson asked, the roommate provided the Missives to the police.

Messages and interviews with family members form crucial parts of the indictment against Robinson and give an overview of his state of mind.

In addition, investigators also said that four shells were found alongside a rifle discovered in a wooded area near the University of Utah Valley campus.

The shell boxes had messages engraved in them which, before the arrest of Robinson, were among the only potential indications on the killer’s motive – and were the subject of many speculations.

An unforgettable round had the words “hey fascist! Catch!” With a top, right and three arrows below – probably a reference to a video game, Helldivers 2, indicating one of the special movements of the game.

Another shell case, say the authorities, read “Bulge Owo opinion What is it?” – A reference to a meme on the fur subculture and the online role-playing game.

The BBC has also seen an online profile belonging to Robinson on a website dedicated to the fur fandom, suggesting that it could have an interest in the subject.

Another case was written with lyrics from the song Bella Ciao, which honors supporters of the Second World War of the Italian Resistance who fought Nazi Germany. The song also appeared in a video game, a television series and was covered and remixed several times in the years that followed.

The fourth cartridge said: “If you read this, you are Gay Lmao” – another online reference.

But the exact meaning of the messages, if they are indeed intended to have a meaning beyond a farce, is still not clear. The nature of the online language, with its layers on layers of irony, means that several interpretations are possible.

In the messages to his roommate, Robinson said that engravings were “mainly a great meme”, perhaps indicating that they should not be considered a serious declaration.

Photos of social media accounts apparently belonging to Robinson and his roommate who circulates online are mainly focused on the game – it seems that Robinson and his roommate were passionate video players.

The accounts include some dispersed comments on the policy, none of them particularly conclusive or directly indicative of a reason. The BBC examined the accounts, but has not been able to confirm that they belong to the pair.

According to the messages published by the prosecutors, when asked his roommate how long he had taken to plan the attack, Robinson replied: “A little over a week”.

Utah prosecutors above all refused to answer media questions on Tuesday, and although the Governor of the State Spencer Cox said that Robinson had a “left -wing ideology”, there are still shortcomings in what we know of a possible reason.

For example, we do not know what specifically found Robinson about Kirk. It is also not known how Robinson could have been radicalized and what role his online activities could have had in this process.

The authorities were tight on what role – if necessary – the suspect’s policy played in the attack.

When Gray, the county prosecutor, was asked directly if the transgender activism inspired the shooting, he refused to comment.

There is also the possibility that the suspect did not have a coherent political position. In several American mass shootings and recent assassination attempts – including the assassination attempt by Donald Trump in Pennsylvania last July – the killers seemed to have a set of blurred political beliefs, or no clearly defined ideology.

The FBI recently recognized a new category of threat called violent nihilist or nve extremism, defined by general hostility to society and the desire for chaos rather than a strongly defined ideology.

FBI director Kash Patel, said in a hearing in the Senate on Tuesday that his agency had seen a significant increase in cases involving NVE.

In the Kirk case, Katherine Schweit, former FBI agent and prosecutor, said investigators will be busy following Robinson’s communications and online interactions with friends and family members to glean more information.

“This gives us a lot of knowledge on someone’s path towards violence,” she said, adding that agents “will constitute them all together to see how someone moves on the path of frustration until you choose to commit a violent act.”

The prospect of capital punishment means that prosecutors will have to show the intention of committing murder when they relate to their business in court. However, Schweit says that it is distinct from motivation, which may or may not be directly relevant to the case.

“Television and films have taught us that the motive is the most important thing, but from the point of view of the prosecution, this is not the case.”

Schweit also noted that some high -level murderers have been motivated by the desire to be famous or to impress people.

During the hearing of the Senate on Tuesday, the director of the FBI, Patel, also said that others were investigated for a possible involvement in the shooting.

For the moment, no one has been charged in connection with the case and the investigators have indicated that someone else was involved.

This did not prevent fever – and mostly without evidence – online speculation on alleged motivations and large -scale plots.

A certain number of right -wing influencers with huge social media, several of which are close to President Trump and the Turning Point USA organization in Kirk, alleged that the shooting was the work of a group or a “terrorist cell” inspired by transgender activism and funded by leftist activists.

Trump said this week that he would designate an antifa as a “great terrorist organization” as part of his efforts to target the “radical left”, after the kirk murder. Robinson, the suspect, was not directly linked to Antifa, a decentralized left movement which opposes far -right, racist and fascist groups.

Some high -level right -wing podcasters, including the former Trump chief advisor, Steve Bannon, have suggested that the text messages exchanged by Robinson and his roommate were sort of faked or false, involving – again without proof – a broader plot.

At the same time, a number of social media users on the left have continued to assert that Robinson is a supporter or a Trump member of a far -right group known as “Groypers” – who has constantly castigated Kirk so as not to support their white and white anti -Semitic beliefs.

These complaints are also lacking in evidence and the prosecutors and UTAH officials have given no indication that far -right groups are involved.

“Everyone leaves the conclusions because it is the society in which we live,” said Schweit, the former FBI agent. “Everyone wants an answer – and now.”