Photo of Charlie Kirk shooting suspect in Trump shirt is altered

Published on September 15, 2025 at 22:46
3 min read
By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA

An image circulating widely online appears to show Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old Utah resident accused of shooting dead US right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, wearing a T-shirt supportive of President Donald Trump. But the photo is altered; the original, lifted from Robinson's mother's since-deactivated Facebook page, showed the suspect in a plain top.

"So we're just gonna ignore he was a Trump supporter?" says a September 13, 2025 post sharing the picture on X.

Screenshot from X taken September 15, 2025

Similar posts spread across X and other platforms -- including Facebook, Instagram, Threads and TikTok -- after authorities arrested Robinson September 11, ending a 33-hour manhunt for a suspect in the assassination.

Kirk, 31, was a polarizing figure who used his massive following among young conservatives to help Trump return to the White House in the 2024 election.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, said Kirk's alleged killer Robinson was romantically involved with a transgender roommate and had "leftist ideology" -- though Cox maintained that investigators were still working to determine a motive.

Inscriptions on bullet casings found at the crime scene appeared to reference online gaming culture and a World War II-era Italian anti-fascist song, according to Cox. One cartridge had "Hey, fascist! Catch!" written on it.

Neighbors and others who knew Robinson told AFP he was the smart, eldest child of three boys who were raised Mormon by Republican parents. He briefly studied at a Utah State University before enrolling in an electrical apprentice program at a local technical college.

The suspect was registered as unaffiliated and did not cast a ballot in 2024, according to Utah voter records.

Photos found on his mother's Facebook page, which has since been removed, showed the family with firearms, and Robinson posing on Halloween in 2017 in what his mother described as a "#trumpcostume."

The image of Robinson sporting a Trump "Make America Great Again" T-shirt is doctored, however.

Reverse image searches revealed the original photo has been shared across social media and published by news organizations, including ABC News and the Daily Mail (archived here, here and here). The picture is credited to Facebook, where it appeared to have been posted by his mother after Robinson moved into college.

Screenshot from ABC News taken September 15, 2025

In the unedited version of the photo, Robinson is wearing a plain, maroon-colored shirt. Other images show him in the same outfit and room (archived here).

AFP has debunked other misinformation about Kirk's shooting here, here, here and here.

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