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A former FBI agent and Utah Valley University professor is warning that a new wave of political violence appears to be increasingly targeting everyday citizens, not just political figures, after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination on campus on Sept. 10.
“The [Minneapolis] church shooting, the Charlie Kirk shooting, these are different,” said Greg Rogers, who spent 30 years in the FBI, many of them as a SWAT sniper.
“These are just citizens that are being murdered for political reasons, which is…certainly not unique and brand new, but it’s happening more frequently,” he continued. “We haven’t seen much of that…If you think about political assassinations in the past, even in modern times, you’ve got John and Bobby Kennedy, you’ve got Ronald Reagan was shot, you’ve got George Wallace when he was a governor was shot. You’ve got all these big political national figures. That to me seems very different than normal citizens that are kind of just doing their thing, getting murdered for their political views.”
Then-President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963. His brother, Robert F. Kennedy, was a leading presidential candidate when Sirhan Sirhan gunned him down five years later. At Kirk’s memorial Sunday, his son, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was expected to attend with President Trump and other Cabinet members.
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Charlie Kirk hands out hats before speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. He was shot and killed at the event. (Tess Crowley/The Deseret News via AP)
About 33 hours after the slaying, a suspect surrendered to the sheriff in Washington County, Utah, about 270 miles from the crime scene. He has been identified as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, an electrician apprentice who recently drifted apart from his immediate family and became “more political” and supporting “more pro-gay and trans rights” over the past year, according to court documents.
In a text message to his roommate and trans romantic partner, he allegedly confessed to the crime and attempted to explain himself.
“I had enough of his hatred,” he wrote, referring to Kirk, according to court documents. “Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
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Charlie Kirk speaks at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025 in Orem, Utah, prior to the assassination. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images)
He also allegedly confessed to friends on the gaming communication app Discord, which allows for voice, video and text chats.
“How comfortable do you have to be with these people and believe that they’re so much on the same page that you are that you’re somehow OK writing that?” Rogers said. “You must firmly believe that they’re all going to agree with you. And not only are they going to agree with, they’re going to think that what you did was impressive.”
And Robinson’s alleged decision to etch memes onto bullet casings used in the attack also appears eerily similar to what happened in the December assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two gunned down from behind while visiting New York City for a shareholder conference.
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At the scene, suspected assassin Luigi Mangione allegedly left behind casings with words written on them in an apparent reference to a book critical of the health insurance industry.
Rogers, who spent years working undercover, infiltrating extremist groups, biker gangs and militias, told Fox News Digital that he’s seen corners of the internet turn into echo chambers where people can begin to radicalize.
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“I’ve seen it in the undercover cases I worked, when I was hanging out with militia guys and other White supremacists, you get into these sites like he did, and you’re spending hours and hours a day talking to like-minded individuals, and it really does become your reality,” Rogers said. “That’s where you go for everything. For socialization. They think it’s news. And this becomes their reality. That’s what they believe. And they believe it fervently. And I think that’s what happened to him. He got there and he got there quickly.”
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A photograph of the person of interest in Charlie Kirk’s assassination on Sept. 10, 2025 in Orem, Utah. (Utah Public Safety)
The root of Robinson’s apparent radicalization is not immediately clear, but his mother was apparently concerned enough about his alleged leftward lurch to explain it to investigators.
Rogers said parents should monitor their children’s gaming and other online activities to counter the effects of potential echo chambers.
“Parents need to be much, much more attentive into who their kids are talking to and what they’re talking about, and there’s ways to do that where you don’t seem overbearing,” he said.
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People run after a shot was fired at U.S. conservative commentator Charlie Kirk during a Utah Valley University speaking event in Orem, Utah, Sept. 10, 2025. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune via REUTERS)
“I’ve always been surprised how parents think that’s difficult,” he added. “I mean, the simple response is, ‘I’m paying for your cellphone bill. I’m paying for the Wi-Fi for your laptop. So I’m having access to what you’re doing.'”
Rogers’ class resumed Thursday evening, when he opened up the class for discussions and reflection and skipped his planned lecture.
His course is normally focused on serial killers and criminal psychology, he said, adding that Kirk’s assassination will likely be dissected by criminal profilers.
“In this particular case, the stuff that he had written on his cartridges, all those sorts of things, his social media, mean a whole lot to a profiler about the type of defendant you’re dealing with,” he said.
Robinson faces charges including aggravated murder, which carries the potential death penalty in Utah. He may also face federal charges.
Booking photos for Tyler Robinson, 22, the suspect in the Utah assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. (Utah Gov. Spencer Cox)
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Kirk was a 31-year-old father of two. He co-founded Turning Point USA, a national conservative youth organization with chapters on hundreds of university campuses, and rose to prominence not just as a conservative speaker and commentator, but by debating people in person at schools around the U.S.
Turning Point’s UVU chapter had sponsored the event at which Kirk was speaking with an audience member when he was killed.
“You, of course, want your students to feel safe walking around campus and being back,” Rogers said. “And unfortunately, I think due to my career and everything I’ve seen, you can’t just say to them, oh, everything’s better because we caught the bad guy.”