Utah Gov. Cox: Suspected Charlie Kirk shooter not cooperating

(NewsNation) — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said the suspected shooter behind political activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination is not cooperating with authorities.

“The suspect has not been cooperating so far, and so we’re getting all of this information from family members, again people around the suspect and the forensic information that we have,” Cox said of suspected shooter Tyler Robinson during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

According to authorities, Robinson confessed to a family friend — or “implied that he had committed the murder” — and that person in turn contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday. NewsNation sources said Robinson was on the FBI’s radar on Thursday and was initially identified through facial recognition investigative methods.

During the interview, Cox responded to speculation that Robinson came from a conservative family.

“We can confirm, that again, according to family and people that we’re interviewing, he does come from a conservative family, but his ideology was very different than his family,” Cox said.

Cox also responded to speculation regarding Robinson’s personal relationship with a roommate.

“We do know that the roommate that we’d originally talked about, we can confirm that roommate is a boyfriend who is transitioning from male to female,” Cox said. “That person has been very cooperative with authorities.”

According to Cox, this individual did not have any knowledge about the attack and was shocked. Authorities are still working to determine a motive behind the attack, with Cox stating that more details about the investigation would become available Tuesday once charges are filed.

“The why behind this, again we’re all drawing lots of conclusions and how someone like this could be radicalized,” he said. “And I think that those are important questions for us to ask and important questions for us to answer.”