STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Let's bring back Juliette Kayyem of Harvard University, former senior Homeland Security official, for some more insight. Welcome back to you.
JULIETTE KAYYEM: Thanks for having me.
INSKEEP: I want to start with something that we heard from Governor Cox there that strikes me as really quite important - a way to think of this killing. He says, quote, "there is one person responsible for what happened here." One person responsible. Why is that an important thing to say?
KAYYEM: Because it focuses our attention on the individual who committed this heinous crime, Tyler Robinson, and that he is, indeed, responsible for the death of Charlie Kirk. So don't - so everyone's going to try to find some motive or reason or his parents or guns or whatever. They're - Tyler Robinson killed someone, and he will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
But Governor Cox also, I really have to say, met the moment. He then, you know, took a lens back and said, this talk - of the way we talk to each other about each other online and in person is essentially the talk of eradication - right? - that if I exist, you can't exist, or if you exist, then my existence is threatened. And I thought Cox just sort of really - you know, and in (ph) such an important way in this time. He was sort of - at the right moment, he said, you know, touch some grass. I mean, basically, get out there and get away from all of this because fundamentally, we're all just human beings. And that was important.
INSKEEP: There's one other aspect of saying there is one person responsible. In the minutes and hours after this shooting, it was common for people to say - some people to say - on social media a version of they killed Charlie Kirk. They killed - and blaming the left, which is one place you can set blame.
KAYYEM: Yeah.
INSKEEP: And we should be fair. If a more liberal figure had been shot, we would hear similar statements about the broad political right. Spencer Cox is insisting on a different viewpoint of this, that the person who pulled the trigger is the person who did this and it's not a political movement.
KAYYEM: Exactly right. I mean, the political violence is wrong, period, right? It's not qualified by any belief system or what that side did or what this side did. And Cox repeated that - right? - that this is about violence. We so fixate on the ideology - I mean, of Robinson, the man arrested. We're going to look to his past and how did he get radicalized one way or the other. It's not even clear what's going on in the family - guns. We look for all of these things to give us a eureka moment, and really, it's sort of staring us in the face. It's about a permission structure that we've created in this country about political violence that we have got to get back...
INSKEEP: Yeah.
KAYYEM: ...And contain.
INSKEEP: Yeah. These markings on the shell casings, you could look at the quote about fascists and...
KAYYEM: Yeah.
INSKEEP: ...See one political view. You could look at another quote here about gay people and imagine another political point of view. And really, we don't know. But let's talk about the evidence that we do have.
KAYYEM: Yeah.
INSKEEP: What did you think as you learned the details of this investigation and the way that it unfolded, the way that the man was found? What stood out for you?
KAYYEM: Yeah. I think we forget how remarkable the sort of crowdsourcing aspects of crime control and crime, you know, investigations is. This really didn't exist 10 years ago. Boston Marathon sort of started it, the Boston Marathon investigation. Law enforcement has traditionally kept things close for a reason. And what you saw over the course of 48 hours was a very tight investigation. It was clear they came up short. They had the pictures, and they put the pictures out.
We don't know which picture, which piece of information, whether it came from these disclosures, this crowdsourcing by law enforcement, or was it Robinson's own admissions, own things on social media that got the family member focused. But the family member, more likely than not, saw the picture and was able to put the pieces together. It's important that family members, you know, obviously before, but also after help law enforcement. There are - not simply for Kirk and this particular investigation, but these kinds of political assassinations have oxygen to them. These guys become - the assassins become heroes, as we've seen. They feed off of each other. And it was very important to have this arrest quickly because I was - I think most of us in this field were a little bit fearful if he had gotten away, what that would mean.
INSKEEP: This investigation looked and felt a little chaotic from the outside...
KAYYEM: Yeah.
INSKEEP: ...A day ago, but I guess it looks better now.
KAYYEM: Obviously, just simply because of the end of it, but we should not think that this was normal. What you saw in the last 48 hours was a very, very disjointed, seemingly ununified investigation between local, state and federal resources. You saw a federal headquarters, including Director Kash Patel, sort of get ahead on social media, get ahead on various aspects of the investigation. He's pulled back, doesn't even speak at the press conference last night. And I think that's important. Cox really took the reins at this stage as the FBI comes to terms with its leadership and the fact it's been, you know, very much sidelined.
INSKEEP: And he did - Kash Patel did get an opportunity to speak this morning. Let's listen to one thing that he had to say about a victim that he knew. OK, we're not going to be able to hear FBI Director Kash Patel. But he said to Charlie Kirk, see you in Valhalla, making this statement as a man named Tyler Robinson was arrested for the murder in Utah. We'll bring you more as we learn it from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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