All right, now to this. Tyler Robinson,
the 22-year-old man accused of fatally
shooting conservative activist Charlie
Kirk was back in court today.
>> Prosecutors in the case against the
suspect in the Charlie Kirk
assassination say they have a large
amount of evidence. As Claudia Cowan
reports, in today's hearing, the
suspect's legal team asked a Utah judge
for more time to review it.
>> Into the jail, do we have Mr. Robinson
present?
>> Yes, your honor. Robinson's newly
appointed attorney, Kathy Nester,
appearing for the first time as his
counsel.
>> We met this morning with the defense
team briefly in our office to talk about
discovery. There is a substantial amount
of discovery in this case, your honor.
It's voluminous to say the least. Um,
and we're working on a process where we
can exchange information as quickly as
possible and be efficient in that
process.
I got nightmares in my head. I feel
my mind feels like a creature. It haunts
me so much.
I got nightmares in my head.
>> Hello and welcome to True Crime Rocket
Science. There is a substantial amount
of discovery, but there are also a few
hurdles for the prosecution, and it
requires a change of perspective to
really see it and understand it. The
most dangerous moment for Charlie Kirk's
sniper was when Kirk was addressing the
crowd, alert, alive, and vigilant. If
Kirk himself had spotted the sniper,
just imagine that if he had spotted the
sniper and told the crowd, the sniper
would have been toast, dead meat. Does
that make sense? So, did he see someone
in the crowd? Did someone else see? And
if no one did, why not? In this
analysis, we want to drill deeper into
some lingering questions. Number one,
what was the actual trajectory and why
was it chosen? Two, is there video
footage of the sniper taking the shot?
Three, how did the sniper get the
firearm to the scene without being seen?
As we deal with all three questions
carefully, one by one, we'll need to
examine the footage we've seen and the
arguments we've heard a lot more
carefully and in a lot more detail.
We're going to need to slow down the
video footage to a crawl, lean in, and
look much, much closer. But before we
get to that, the latest news in this
case is that a second court hearing has
been held for the alleged suspect.
>> As this case moves forward, Mr.
Robinson's constitutional rights will be
protected at every stage. He sits before
this court presumed innocent and that
presumption remains unless and until
each element of every offense charged
against him is proved beyond a
reasonable doubt. And how do you prove
your case beyond reasonable doubt? Well,
with evidence. Now, before we deal with
that question of trajectory, thanks very
much to Katrina Murphy from New Zealand.
Thanks very much for your contribution.
Every little bit helps. Also, thank you
and welcome to the many new subscribers.
If you are finding this analysis
worthwhile, interesting, informative,
objective, meaningful, please do hit the
thanks button. If you've never hit the
thanks button, this is your chance. Also
want to say I apologize if I get
frustrated with some of you out there.
It's it's frustrating when it feels like
people can't see the light. And I feel
like you're going to have a certain
level of reality, truth, and justice
with me and another level without me.
>> With me, without me, with me, without
me.
>> Anyway, let's get down to brass tax.
Number one, what was the actual
trajectory and why was it chosen? Since
the sniper's most direct threat was
being seen by his target, who if you
think about it, was virtually the only
person facing him. Just have a look at
the situation. There's a crowd of 3,000.
They are all looking at Charlie Kirk.
So, all the sniper had to do was
position himself behind them and then
also take measures to make sure he
wasn't seen. Sounds simple, right? So,
how was the sniper going to mitigate
being seen? Well, firstly, by lying
down. Secondly, by dressing the same
color as his environment. You know, in
this case, the roof panels of the Loi
building in this case. And third, and a
hunter would know this instinctually by
hiding and concealing himself behind the
infrastructure. You know, hunters have
also got to often think about wind
direction. And in this case, I think
possibly the hunter, the sniper in this
case was thinking about the direction of
sight. And I do think he used the corner
of the roof of the Sorenson Center quite
effectively. Tyler Robinson, I think the
prosecution will try to argue,
positioned himself just left of that
jutting corner. This made it very
difficult for Charlie to see him,
especially if he approached the sniper's
nest low and from the right, crawled
into position, and stayed low. For all
intents and purposes, the shooter
succeeded in not being seen on the
campus and prior to the shot being
fired. Now, for those who believe the
alternative conspiracy theory that the
trajectory had to be from somewhere else
because only bone would stop the bullet
from emerging, well, a soft round used
by hunters is designed to dissipate
energy on impact. If a soft round was
used or if the bullet grazed the edge of
the roof he was hiding behind, well,
either of these would significantly
reduce the speed and energy of the
bullet causing it to embed in the neck.
Number two, is there video footage of
the sniper taking the shot?
Do you notice there is a silver
UFO-shaped ventilation outlet that lies
between the shooter and the CCTV camera?
This could have provided some visual
shielding, certainly from the rear. It's
likely that the CCTV recorded the sound
of the shot, so prosecutors probably
will be able to track that exact moment
in real time and match it to other
footage from other cameras and devices,
including cell phones. If we play back
the footage moments after the shot was
fired, we see a tiny figure running from
the far left from the sniper's position.
Can you see it? because he is at the far
end of the building and due to the wide
camera angle, the figure appears tiny
antlike and because he's so far away,
you know, whether slowed down or zoomed
in, no matter how many times you watch
it, it's very difficult to see what's
going on because he is so small. Again,
the giveaway here will be the sound and
the time and what we see afterwards and
then drawing logical inferences from
that. Number three, how did the sniper
get the firearm to the scene without
being seen? One theory is that the
sniper had a rifle down his trousers
far-fetched, right? Well, this is the
obstacle the prosecution are going to
have to prove to make their case. We do
know he was limping on one leg and we
also know especially from the second and
fourth images in this collage looking
left to right it does look like
something irregular some irregular shape
is inside his right that's on our left
side his right trouser leg. Let's zoom
in on the zigzaggy right leg in this
image. Now look closer.
Compare the relatively straight lines of
his left leg to the very weird irregular
lines of the right, the one with the
rifle underneath. Even in this image, do
you notice the bulge in his lower
trouser leg just below his right hand?
This is again on our left side. And we
see those same strange shapes in this
image. It's not just the pocket area
that appears filled up, but that area
just below it looks suspiciously
triangular directed downward. Could this
be the rifle butt? Now, I'm not a gun
expert. I did do weapons assembly and
disassembly in the military, but I
presume if the other half of the weapon,
the muzzle and barrel and scope, if that
was in the backpack, that could work.
That part of the firearm in that in his
trousers would fit in there. I would
like to see it demonstrated. I do think
it's theoretically possible, but that is
something that I think the prosecution
will need to show in order to prove it.
It's also possible the barrel is
inserted in that backpack at a slight
angle. They would obviously be using the
original firearm and the dimensions of
that weapon to make their case. There
does seem to be a slight bulge on the
left side. Besides half the weapon, the
bag likely had a towel, a change of
clothes, and important, a screwdriver
inside. Why is the screwdriver
important? Well, this seems to reinforce
this idea that the firearm was assembled
in situ on the roof.
>> Kathy Netor appearing for the first time
as his counsel. She asked the presiding
judge for more time to review the quote
voluminous amount of evidence in the
case. It's interesting to me that on the
one hand you hear about voluminous
amounts of evidence while on the other
you hear claims that there is no
evidence. Which one is it? No. No.
Answer the question right now. Is there
a lot of evidence in this case or no
evidence? Only one can be objectively
true. And I've been in true crime long
enough to see from the moon a million
miles away whether there is a lot of
evidence or not. In the John Ramsey
case, there's a Mount Everest of of
evidence and yet you had the district
attorney there saying, "We do not
believe there's sufficient evidence to
prosecute this case." So, which was
true? That there was no evidence or that
there was a huge amount of evidence?
Which one is it? Are you telling me in
this case there's no evidence? Not even
enough evidence to bring charges.
>> Are you out of your [ __ ] mind? It
reminds me frankly of the Amanda Knox
case where the same was said, no
evidence. Is that why it took 8 years of
legal wrangling, 18 if you include the
legal wrangling that just happened this
year, because there was so little
evidence?
>> I've paid attention, reported on all of
these high-profile shooting incidents in
the last decade plus. The through line
that I've identified really comes from
your analysis. It's despair, right?
It's really striking when you look at
these shootings when they happen and it
can be everything from the Kirk
assassination to your more typical
unfortunately high school shooting.
>> I made that discovery about 7 years ago
when I wrote a book profiling many mass
shooters. It was called Slaughter.
>> And immediately you start asking, okay,
who did this? What's their story? And
it's just so striking over so many years
of working with reporters on these
pieces that you often, more often than
not, find a young man who is socially
isolated, struggling to hold down a job.
>> Despair is a common ingredient, but I
think a better word is humiliation.
Social death for a social animal is
something that feels like despair. But
the reality is when you are young and
failing in the context of supremely the
supremely social settings of high school
and college, which is certainly where
the Tyler Robinson story said, certainly
where the Charlie Kirk story is said.
Well, we are dealing with a social
context, aren't we? the context of
people rising up, flying their colors
and succeeding, gaining agency, gaining
traction, while meanwhile you are being
bullied, impinged, insulted, limited,
whatever it is. And and all of that
stings. That is often an unbearable
feeling. And that feeling is
humiliation.
>> Every [ __ ] day someone somewhere
takes a conscious decision to destroy
someone else. If you can't find that
stuff in life, then you, my friend,
don't know crap about life. And
>> and a young man is more inclined to want
revenge for being humiliated by his
peers than simply because he feels
despair, which after all, well, that
despair flows from the original
wounding, the original humiliation. I'd
like very much to deal with that in more
detail in an episode dealing with
nihilism. If you think about it, every
time there's a mass shooting, we wonder
who the shooter was, what color or creed
he stood for, and who he represented.
But our interest only seems to last
until the political gender reveal party.
That was an analogy John Stewart
recently used.
>> It's America's new gender reveal
tradition.
>> And then we forget. There's a
hopelessness and a helplessness we feel
in the face of such catastrophe and such
clawing entropy. It's real and there's a
right way and a wrong way to deal with
it. The wrong way is the politics of
grievance, the of moaning and groaning
and blaming somebody else and feeding
conspiracies. So, what is the right way?
Well, we'll deal with that in the next
episode. Thank you for listening and
I'll see you guys next time.
Heat. Heat.
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Heat.
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Heat.
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Heat. Heat.
