 "A poster of conservative activist Charlie Kirk is displayed at a memorial following the fatal shooting of Kirk, at the Turning Point USA headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, US, September 12, 2025. Reuters")
Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from Utah, was arrested for allegedly killing American conservative activist Charlie Kirk this week. His arrest on Friday (September 12) came after a 33-hour manhunt.
Robinson is being held without bail in a Utah jail on several initial charges, including aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm and obstruction of justice. While the investigation is on, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that bullet casings recovered near the deadly shooting were engraved with anti-fascist and taunting messages.
What do these casings reveal? We take a look.
Decoding engravings on bullet casings
After Charlie Kirk’s fatal shooting at Utah Valley University in Orem, police recovered a bolt-action rifle left in a wooded area near the campus.
Bullet casings found from the fatal shooting of the close ally of United States President Donald Trump are said to be inscribed with anti-fascist messages and references to online meme culture and video games.
One shell casing read: “Hey fascist! Catch!” – the message that Governor Cox said Friday “speaks for itself.”
As per CNN, this could allude to the video game Helldivers 2, which is a satirical commentary on fascism, as what players say when they drop a bomb.
Cox did not provide a visual image of the inscriptions or describe the punctuation, spelling, or capitalisation within them.
Up arrow symbol, right arrow, and three down arrows on a casing could also refer to Helldivers 2, describing how the controller would be used by a player to drop a bomb.
The inscription on one fired casing said “Notices bulges OwO what’s this?” This is an internet meme and iterative slang that spread in 2018 and 2019. It has links to animated videos and furries, with “OwO” referring to an emoticon, and “what’s this?” signifying cuteness or curiosity. They are usually used by video game streamers, reported USA Today.
One of the bullet casings was engraved with “Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao ciao”, an Italian song for resistance fighters opposing the Nazi troops occupying the country during WWII. A rallying cry for anti-fascists, the song has taken on meanings in video gaming and online culture.
Another engraving read: “If you read this, you are gay LMAO.”
“LMAO” stands for “laughing my ass off.”
What do these engravings say about the shooter?
The phrases on the casings are “full of memes and jokes potentially meant for an online audience”, Jamie Cohen, a professor at Queens College, City University of New York and an expert in memes and digital culture, told CNN.
He said the inscriptions could mean the suspect is an “extremely online person” and was likely trying to communicate with his inner circle.
In the case of mass shooters and extremist groups, memes are often designed to gain media attention and disseminate that group’s message into the mainstream, Cohen added.
“Memes are supposed to be read by meme audiences,” the professor said. “They’re meant for in-group communication.”
“A lot of these memes are designed specifically as dog whistles,” he said. “You have to be fairly in tune with the idea that these are messages for that meaning.”
Authorities have pointed to the engravings on bullet casings as a potential evidence of a political motive.
A family member of the shooting suspect told investigators that Robinson “had become more political in recent years,” and had slammed Kirk at a recent family dinner, Cox said at the press conference.
ALSO READ: Who is Erika Kirk, widow of slain Trump ally and Maga activist Charlie Kirk?
Tyler was ‘quiet, but fun’
Tyler Robinson, the suspect arrested in the shooting of Charlie Kirk, grew up in a Utah suburb.
A video posted on social media in 2021 shows him reading a letter from Utah State University, which offered him a four-year merit scholarship. However, he left the school after just a semester, never to return.
An electrician who worked with Robinson on a job just a few weeks ago told CNN on the condition of anonymity that his colleague was shy and “wasn’t talkative unless he was spoken to.”
Robinson “didn’t really talk political… unless someone brought it up,” the electrician said, adding that “he wasn’t too fond of Trump or Charlie (Kirk).”
Robinson, like his family, was politically conservative and backed Trump ahead of the 2020 presidential election, one of the suspect’s former classmates told the American broadcaster.
“When I knew him and his family, they were like diehard Trump,” the ex-classmate said. “When this happened, I was like… I don’t know what changed.”
The person recalled Robinson being “very, very big into gaming” and interested in video game design. Robinson and his friends “would spend their lunches playing the card games and all that kind of stuff,” he said.
Robinson was “quiet all the time” and “a little goofy,” the classmate said, adding he could not remember him making concerning statements or getting into trouble. “He was fun to be around, fun to talk to. He just was kind of shy and didn’t open up very often.”
With inputs from agencies