Here’s What Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Shooter Wrote on His Bullet Casings

Bullet casings engraved by Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer tell a very different story about his political ideologies than previously understood.

Authorities identified the suspect as Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from Utah. Robinson reportedly revealed his actions to his family members, who turned him in Friday morning. He has been booked into the Utah County jail, according to Governor Spencer Cox.

During an FBI presser Friday, Cox revealed that police had located four bullet casings connected to Robinson—one fired, three unfired. The text on the fired casing made a possible reference to an old Reddit copypasta, reading: “Notices bulge OWO what’s this?”

The unfired casings featured different scrawls. One read, “Hey fascist! Catch!” Another: “Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao,” possibly referring to an Italian anti-fascist folk song. The last casing read: “If you read this you are gay LMAO.”

Contrary to prior reporting, none of the text suggested that Robinson was transgender or supported transgender people. But that didn’t stop the transgender community from catching heat: A bulletin circulated among law enforcement officials Thursday suggested that symbols on Robinson’s weapons expressed “transgender and anti-fascist ideology.” That detail was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal eventually retracted the premature release, though its correction wasn’t enough to stop MAGA-heads and other far-right personalities from dogpiling on the transgender community in their vengeful grief over Kirk’s murder. In the wake of that reporting, conservatives referred to trans people as a “species” that deserves “no mercy,” calling for them to be “rounded up” and “deported.”

Robinson was registered as a nonpartisan voter. Both of his parents, however, are registered Republicans, according to public records.

Citing one of Robinson’s family members, Cox said at the news conference that the suspect had “become more political in recent years,” particularly about Kirk.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered his own unhinged theory as to who shot Charlie Kirk, asserting without any evidence that the Turning Point USA founder was killed by a team of “radical Islamists and ultra-progressives.”

“This is a worldwide problem. The people on the extremes, the Islamists … the radical Islamists and their union with the ultra-progressives, they often speak about human rights. They speak about free speech. But they use violence to try to take down their enemies,” Netanyahu said on Fox News on Friday. “Whether it’s President Trump, who’s been almost assassinated twice, or they try to kill me here too. But they got Charlie Kirk, and it’s just heartbreaking.”

So, just to be clear: The Israeli Prime Minister decided to appear on American media to assure its audience Israel had absolutely nothing to do with Charlie Kirk’s death but that some anonymous cabal of Muslims and leftists does.

This makes no sense, as no one knows the motive behind Kirk’s killing at this moment, especially not Netanyahu. The prime minister is dipping into the same obtuse, harmful rhetoric of the American right, declaring war on an anonymous “they,” latching on to a fictional scenario to project their own biases onto the situation.

Netanyahu decrying political violence is rich, as just this month he has starved Palestinians, bombed residential buildings in Gaza City, set siege to the West Bank, and attacked Hamas leadership in Doha, Qatar.

FBI Director Kash Patel unleashed a profanity-laced tirade on federal agents, as he cracked under the pressure of finding Charlie Kirk’s killer. 

The New York Times reported Thursday that Patel completely lost it during an online meeting with 200 agents involved in the manhunt for Kirk’s killer. 

One official recounted to the Times that among Patel’s mostly expletive-laden remarks, he warned agents he wouldn’t put up with anymore “Mickey Mouse operations.” But it was Patel who’d turned the investigation into a farce by congratulating state and federal officials Wednesday for taking “the subject for the horrific shooting today” into custody—a claim that officials were forced to backtrack hours later.

In the Thursday meeting, Patel was furious that it had taken 12 hours for him to see a photograph of the suspected killer, and blamed agents in Salt Lake City (where he had fired the head of the FBI field office for unclear reasons just weeks earlier). He also berated subordinates he said hadn’t provided him timely information.  

Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, relayed that they were under immense pressure to succeed and prove that they were capable of conducting a manhunt. As it turns out, they were not.

President Donald Trump claimed Friday morning on Fox & Friends that a 22-year-old suspect had been apprehended, but only because one of his family members turned him in. 

Former FBI Director Andrew McCabe criticized Patel’s hands-on approach to the search, as the director’s handling of the case has come under increasing scrutiny. On Wednesday, Patel was the subject of a major lawsuit against the Department of Justice, accusing him of unlawfully ousting any employee that had investigated Trump.

Poland is not allowing Donald Trump to brush off Russia’s recent drone incursion.

Nineteen Russian drones, many originating from Belarus, crossed into Polish airspace late Tuesday, forcing the Eastern European nation to shut down four of its airports as it scrambled to fire up its defense systems. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk invoked Article 4 of the NATO Treaty the following day, calling the ​​situation the “closest” that Poland had come to armed conflict “since the Second World War.”

The U.S. president, however, told reporters Thursday that the attack “could have been a mistake.” The White House did not clarify Trump’s remarks.

Polish leadership was unequivocal in its response.

“We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake. But it wasn’t,” said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “And we know it.”

Deputy Foreign Minister of Poland Radosław Sikorski also responded to Trump’s eyebrow-raising comment, plainly explaining that the Russian advance “wasn’t a mistake.”

Trump, who claims he has a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has yet to meaningfully comment on the drone incursion into Poland. On Wednesday, he wrote on Truth Social, “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!”

Trump has little to show for the profound international recognition he’s offered the Kremlin over the last few months. Against the advice of world leaders, Trump invited Putin to Alaska in August—tasking U.S. soldiers to literally roll out the red carpet for the Russian dictator. It was the first time that a Russian leader had stepped foot on U.S. soil in more than a decade.

Still, Russia has not agreed to peace terms in its ongoing war against Ukraine. The superpower has instead insisted on receiving “international legal recognition” of its 2014 annexation of Crimea, an internationally recognized portion of Ukraine, along with four regions it has claimed in the three years since it first invaded Ukraine.

Rather than de-escalate the situation after it breached Polish airspace this week, the Kremlin decided to stoke more fear, tossing threats at Finland if it decided to oppose Russia’s power.

President Donald Trump announced Friday that the suspected killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has been apprehended.

“I think, with a high degree of certainty, we have him in custody,” Trump said on Fox and Friends.

“Essentially, somebody that was very close to him turned him in,” the president continued, noting that additional details would be provided later that day. “I just heard about it five minutes before I walked in. As I’m walking in, they said, ‘Looking real good.’ They have the person that they wanted.”

“So you have breaking news, don’t you, eh? You always have breaking news, Ainsley,” he added, turning to host Ainsley Earhardt, before joking that Sean Hannity, who hosts another show on the network, would “be very disappointed that we’re not doing it on his show.”

“He’ll be very thankful and appreciative of the police officers that got this guy,” Earhardt replied.

Trump later expressed that he hopes the gunman “gets the death penalty.”

Somewhat surprisingly, Kirk’s death on Wednesday was announced not by his family or local authorities, but by Trump himself.

During the ensuing manhunt, the FBI’s MAGA partisan director, Kash Patel, faced criticism for a clumsy and confusing response.

On Wednesday, Patel prematurely declared that “the subject for the horrific shooting today” was in custody—a claim that was almost immediately contradicted by local officials, and which Patel later backtracked on, writing that the “subject” was released.