Utah residents are reeling, knowing the Charlie Kirk suspect is one of their own
Source: NPR
September 13, 2025 11:51 AM ET
OREM, Utah The arrest of Tyler Robinson sent shockwaves through the small community where his family lives. Washington, a city of around 30,000, sits next to St. George in Utah's southwest corner. It's a 3 ½-hour drive from the Utah Valley University campus.
The 22-year-old is the suspect in the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk during a Wednesday event at the campus in Orem. After a 33-hour manhunt, Robinson's family helped turn him in the following day. On Friday morning, after law enforcement released Robinson's name, officers from the Washington City Police and Washington County Sheriff's Office patrolled a quiet street, preventing onlookers from approaching the family's two-story gray stucco home.
'This is not who I wanted it to be'
Neighbor Kristin Schwiermann still couldn't believe the news as she walked by. "It was a shock that it was him," she says, "I feel sorry for his mother and his dad because that's not how they raised him." Schwiermann has lived a couple of houses down from the Robinsons for 16 years and has known the suspect since he was a little boy. She got to know the family when Tyler and his siblings attended the elementary school where she works.
"I really wanted them to find out who it was. This is not who I wanted it to be," she says. The Robinsons and Schwiermann had been part of the same local church, which, like most in this community, belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She hadn't seen the family at church much recently, though.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/13/nx-s1-5540130/utah-residents-are-reeling-knowing-the-charlie-kirk-suspect-is-one-of-their-own

Irish_Dem
(74,770 posts)They should be proud of what their handiwork has accomplished.
Diamond_Dog
(38,469 posts)Hardly seems surprising to me, either.
Irish_Dem
(74,770 posts)wolfie001
(6,124 posts)


Dulcinea
(9,119 posts)Bless her heart, as they say in the South.
SarcasticSatyr
(1,351 posts)that's exactly how they raised him.
not fooled
(6,465 posts)and "real America."
These people have been so steeped in this culture--and the media goes along with the normalization--for so long that they've lost perspective on how twisted it is.
herding cats
(19,840 posts)He's an adult who grew up steeped in gun culture and the constant reminder of how school shootings were a way to get internet fame and vent your grievances.
This is exactly what we should be expecting more and more from their generation. This is literally what they've been taught their entire lives.
msongs
(72,391 posts)NBachers
(18,885 posts)as a Mormon she was less likely to want it to be a brown person (because they like to visit those brown people countries, convert the people, and bring home young brown submissive wives ... Mormons in AZ recalled a state representative for introducing and passing a "show your papers" law) - but I'm sure she wanted it to be a heathen Democrat!
raccoon
(32,020 posts)No matter how much you pray to Yahweh in the sky.
C Moon
(13,175 posts)wolfie001
(6,124 posts)Like the preacher that talked to Ted Bundy and got him to blame his killings on Playboy magazines. The sick republicans have no depth that they can and will sink to.
Mr. Mustard 2023
(335 posts)"Gun violence is the price of freedom" according to Charlie Kirk and Maga. Listen, if they won't condemn the slaughter of our kids in schools and continue to give maniacs machine guns, then I will repeat this until I am stopped.
Charlie Kirk said gun violence (in schools) is the price we pay to have gun rights, so his murder is simply the price of freedom. I send his family my thoughts & prayers.
Phuck the ammosexuals, and I will not play Maga game. Charlie Kirk was a white supremacist fascist and was shot dead by another white supremacist fascist. This is their world not mine.