The suspect accused of fatally shooting conservative activist Charlie Kirk left behind ammunition engraved with a reference to fascism and obscure internet memes and video games, officials said Friday.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said inscriptions were found on at least four shell casings linked to Tyler Robinson, 22, who was arrested early Friday in connection with the killing. One engraving read, “Hey fascist! Catch! ↑ → ↓↓↓,” a seeming reference, at least in part, to a video game that's been interpreted as a satire of fascism.
Authorities said the rounds were found with a Mauser Model 98 bolt-action rifle, fitted with a scope, that investigators recovered in a wooded area on the edge of Utah Valley University’s campus. The gun was wrapped in a dark-colored towel.
In addition to the engraving referencing fascists, Cox also referred to engravings that contained more obscure references.
On the fired casing, for instance, a message read: “notices, bulges, OWO, what’s this?”
The writing appears to be a reference to a meme about the online furry subculture and online role-play, said Jamie Cohen, an assistant professor of media studies at Queens College who researches memes. The meme has largely been used as a method of mockery and trolling, though its relevance to Kirk or the shooting is unclear.
Experts urged caution in interpreting the engravings, citing a long history of shooters using misleading or ironic messages, often mixing politics and internet culture in ways that defy easy categorization.
Cohen said he believes the messages on most of the recovered rounds were left purposely vague by a person who is “extremely online.”
The suspect may have specifically used terms that are difficult to decipher “to remain in the undercurrent of the internet,” he said.
“This type of meme is designed specifically to kind of make sure that the news can’t report on it because it comes from an extremely online approach,” he said.
Bond Benton, a Montclair State University professor who studies social media, branding, popular culture and online hate groups, said the memes come off as incoherent to most people but are embraced by those in niche online spaces.
“This sort of messaging could be sort of a wink to those people because notoriety, being the most talked about in that space, is really, really valuable to members that are of these communities,” he said.
Lindsay Hahn, a University at Buffalo associate professor who researches ideological extremism and the ways in which perpetrators of violence justify their actions, said the suspect was likely seeking fame.
His messages, she said, do not necessarily indicate a specific ideology. “But what they do indicate,” she said, “is that the shooter wanted to get a message across and therefore be talked about online.”
“It sort of seems like these messages, at the very minimum, were selected because he knew they were going to be talked about,” Hahn added.
At the Friday-morning news conference, when asked by a reporter what the messages meant, Cox said: “I will leave that up to you to interpret what those engravings mean.”
The governor said the one referring to fascists “speaks for itself.”
That particular unfired casing was also inscribed with additional symbols — an up arrow, a right arrow and three down arrows. The order of directional arrow symbols is a code used in the hit video game Helldivers 2 to summon a bomb on the player’s position.
