By Ashley Brasfield

Copyright dailycaller

In the hours following the assassination of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk, the internet flooded with theories about who the shooter might be and how he pulled off the tragic murder.

How did the shooter manage to get into position during a crowded university event, fire off a 200-yard shot with a hunting rifle that struck Kirk in the neck, and then evade capture for nearly two days?

The Daily Caller spoke with former special forces personnel, ex-federal protection detail members and a law enforcement official about what likely went into the suspect’s planning, the relative precision of the shot, and the security measures at Utah Valley University (UVU) that allowed the suspect to slip away undetected. The experts who spoke to the Caller acknowledged that while the suspect was not a professional, he had clearly spent some time planning the assassination.

Kirk was shot and killed Wednesday at UVU, prompting a manhunt that led to two false arrests that day and concluded Friday morning in the apprehension of alleged 22-year-old assassin Tyler Robinson. Kirk was guarded by his own personal security team alongside six officers stationed at the event to provide additional protection, according to a Fox 13 Salt Lake City report. (RELATED: Charlie Kirk Dead At 31 Following University Shooting)

🚨MUGSHOTS RELEASED: Tyler Robinson, 22, has been identified as the suspect in the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah. Robinson is currently in police custody. pic.twitter.com/JJ9b9zocPq — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 12, 2025

Utah’s arrest affidavit for Robinson claims that Robinson, wearing dark clothing and a dark backpack, was observed on surveillance footage walking through campus with a “distinctive gait” featuring a “stiff, right leg” before making his way up onto a rooftop overlooking the tent in which Kirk was engaging with students. Officials indicated that the suspect’s stiffened gait was due to him concealing his .30-06 rifle in his pants leg.

Robinson allegedly removed the rifle from its concealed location and sprinted across the roof, setting up in a prone shooting position and shooting Kirk about one minute after lying down. The shot struck Kirk in the neck, leading to immediate severe blood loss.

The approximately 200-yard shot with a scoped hunting rifle suggests some level of experience with a firearm but was not the work of a trained professional, experts told the Caller.

Michael Matranga, CEO of M6 Global Defense and former United States Secret Service (USSS) Presidential Detail, said that unlike Thomas Matthew Crooks, who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, the alleged Kirk assassin likely had experience using a scoped rifle. He explained that the precision of the shot indicated pre-planning and a deliberate intent to kill.

“Now, what I will tell you is I do not believe that this person had the limited skills that Matthew Crooks had. I think this person probably spent quite a bit of time behind a scope, because if you look at the impact of where that round struck, it was obvious that it was trying to intentionally kill him,” Matranga said. “I think that we’re gonna find that this person has some level of experience.”

Tim Reboulet, Chief Operations Officer of M6 Global Defense and former USSS and Presidential Detail also told the Caller the alleged shooter was “somebody that spends a lot of time with a weapon.”

“Most amateurs, in my opinion, would go for the bigger target, which would be the face or the head. But the line of sight based on the roof elevation, think about looking down into a pop-up tent, that individual was dead on with their shots. I won’t say it was a hired assassin, I won’t say it was a total novice, but I would say it’s somebody that spends a lot of time with a weapon and knows how to handle the weapon and a scope,” he said.

Other experts agreed that the suspected shooter had shot rifles before, but indicated they did not believe he was specifically aiming for Kirk’s neck.

Jeff Gum, former Navy SEAL and Co-founder of Trident Academy, said the shooter may have been “aiming for the head and missed down low … and lot of times when you jerk a trigger it’ll come down into the right.”

“So if you’re a right-handed shooter and you pull and you yank the trigger, it’ll go down to the right, so that could totally be what happened there,” Gum explained.

A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity similarly stated that they believe the shooter missed his intended target: Kirk’s chest.

“I think he aimed center mass and hit high,” the official guessed. “Too many variables for a head shot at that distance.”

A rifle shot might miss high if a shooter anticipates the recoil from the gun or makes a jerky trigger pull.

“People are reading too much into a 200-yard shot. That’s not far and anyone with some marksmanship skills can make that shot,” the official argued.

Following the deadly shot, surveillance video shows the suspect standing up and running to the other side of the roof after the shot with his rifle in tow. He climbs down the side of the building, hangs for a moment to get closer to the ground, and then drops to the grass below before running away from the scene.

Robinson then allegedly stashed his rifle and ammunition, wrapped in a towel, in a nearby bush. The suspect, according to law enforcement, messaged his roommate the location of the gun and asked him to pick it up from the drop point.

He also allegedly changed clothes after the shooting to avoid being recognized.

But Robinson’s father reportedly did recognize him from released surveillance images and turned him into the authorities. Officials recovered the weapon and ammunition and the roommate is cooperating with the investigation.

“I’m very surprised he carried the hunting rifle into the woods and risked being seen on his way there just to discard it anyway there,” Gum said of the suspect’s actions following the shooting. “He never even chambered another round which is what every pro does immediately and it’s second nature.”

The law enforcement official noted that this, too, may have been part of the alleged shooter’s plans.

“My guess is he carried the rifle off the roof for ballistic forensic reasons because kids watch too much TV and CSI. Not ejecting the shell casing and taking the rifle prevents DNA, fingerprinting and ballistics that might tie him to the shooting. But then he abandoned the rifle in the woods,” the official told the Caller, adding that he may have found the rifle too cumbersome during his escape or saw people nearby and worried about attracting attention. (RELATED: Charlie Kirk Killer’s Ammo Reportedly Marked With Transgender, Anti-‘Fascist’ Messages)

“I want to know the actions and steps leading up to the event this kid did, because his planning was pretty damn good for a 22-year-old, including his approach and exit,” the official noted. The official suggested the suspect may have scouted the campus several times before the event to figure out the best place to take the shot from, watched the event get set up, and may have even talked to campus police or security who unwittingly gave away where Kirk would be sitting.

New surveillance footage obtained by TMZ allegedly shows Robinson walking toward campus — on the same path he would take later that day — hours before the shooting while wearing different clothing.

“Two to three on campus visits wandering around like a lost freshman and I’m sure he figured out pretty quickly where to take the shot from and how to get in and get out,” the official said.

Gum added, “In the chaos of a situation like that it can be really easy to slip out temporarily and get away like he did.”

The relatively light security on campus during the event would also have made it easier for the shooter to set up and leave the scene without being detected, the experts told the Caller.

Mike Glover, former U.S. Army and Special Forces and host of Mike Force Podcast, spoke to the Caller about the lack of logistical and operational resources present at the event.

“They should have had a larger law enforcement presence which would have deterred something like this from happening. From a security perspective they should have been on the high ground. That’s on buildings, that’s on elevation, period,” he said.

Glover further noted that he doesn’t believe there were Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) around the event, claiming it was an example of a lack of preparedness. “The fact they didn’t have the right protocols in place just shows you the complacency in these departments when it comes to things like this. We didn’t learn from Butler, Pennsylvania,” he argued.

🚨 Photos taken during Turning Point USA’s event at Utah Valley University before shooting: pic.twitter.com/8zpgW2qwao — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 10, 2025

Thomas Fitzsimmons, a security consultant, further emphasized the importance of advance work. “From a private security standpoint, preventing a motivated individual from attacking a client is challenging — due diligence and preparation and scrupulous advance work is the key.”

Fitzsimmons noted that, in his experience, local police departments typically play only a limited role in event security, handling traffic and crowd control. “They simply do not have the budgets or manpower,” he said.

Gum said that “a simple drone operator with one flying overhead getting a bird’s eye view of all potential sniper positions — it would be able to see someone coming in very easy and send police or security team immediately to intercept, while everyone else can find cover.”“It also could’ve been a potential Las Vegas shooter situation,” Gum asserted. “If someone wanted mass casualties, they could’ve killed 100-plus people with an M4 if they just fired into the crowd. Security was completely unprepared for this and we were lucky that was not his intention. If it was a terror cell it could’ve been a complete disaster.”

Matranga emphasized that “particular types of outside political events” can’t continue without thorough advance work from security teams or law enforcement.

“It was very apparent that there were no screening procedures in place, there was no vetting of the people that were there, the event was pre planned and advertised very heavily, without any consideration for the polarization of the actual speaker,” he said. (RELATED: HOUSMAN: Charlie Kirk Represented The Best Of Us)

🚨 BREAKING: The person accused of shooting Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk dead in Utah on Wednesday has been identified as Tyler Robinson, 22, according to multiple reports citing law enforcement sources. https://t.co/EBpDPkPekb — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 12, 2025

James Gagliano, a retired supervisory special agent in the FBI and Homeland Security doctoral candidate at St. John’s University, told the Caller he knew some of the former FBI agents who served on Kirk’s security team in the past. He emphasized that they “can only be close body men” and that it would take “20 or 30 men” with significant advance work to prevent what happened.

Gagliano noted they didn’t have those resources and “nor really should you if it’s just somebody coming to exchange ideas. I hate to sound so fatalistic but I guess that’s where we’re at now.”