The arrest of Tyler Robinson has sent shockwaves through the small community where his family lives. Washington, a city of around 30,000, sits next to St. George in Utah’s southwest corner.
The 22-year-old is the suspect in the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk during an event at Utah Valley University in Orem. After a 33-hour manhunt, Robinson’s family helped turn him in.
It’s a 3.5-hour drive between Washington and the UVU campus.
On the morning of Sept. 12, after law enforcement released Robinson’s name, officers from the Washington City Police and Washington County Sheriff’s Office patrolled a quiet street, preventing onlookers from approaching the family’s two-story gray stucco home.
Neighbor Kristin Schwiermann still couldn’t believe the news as she walked by.
“It was a shock that it was him,” she said. “I so feel sorry for his mother and his dad, because that's not how they raised him.”
Schwiermann has lived a couple of houses down from the Robinsons for 16 years and has known the suspect since he was a little boy. She got to know the family when Tyler and his siblings attended the elementary school where she works.
“I'm glad that they caught him, because I like Charlie Kirk,” Schwiermann said. “I really wanted them to find out who it was. This is not who I wanted it to be.”
The Robinsons and Schwiermann had been part of the same local church, which, like most in this community, belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She hadn’t seen the family at church much recently, though.
Another neighbor, Melissa Tait, said it was a surprise to see her community connected with the shooting. But she believes it says more about the broader issues facing the country than it does about southwest Utah.
“I'm upset. This is horrific, but I am not shocked,” she said.
That’s because she’s seen hate and violence rising in American culture nationwide in recent years.
“This is everywhere. Every community, every town, every state,” Tait said. “It's going to be everybody's neighbor, everybody's classmate. It's not at all unusual anymore.”
While Tait didn’t know the family, she feels bad for them. She hopes this revelation doesn’t have lasting negative effects on what she described as a close-knit community.
“Just because one young man went astray and made a very, very bad choice, please don't judge us,” Tait said.
The residents’ sense of sadness was echoed in the statement from the Washington County Commissioners.
"To hear that the perpetrator of such terrible political violence was raised in our beautiful community is profoundly shocking,” the statement said. “Washington County, like Charlie Kirk himself, stands for the values of faith, freedom, the pursuit of happiness, and justice.”
Washington County is the type of place where Kirk’s message was likely to resonate. The influential figure rose to prominence as a founder of Turning Point USA — an organization educating young people about conservative politics — and eventual ally of President Donald Trump. In the 2024 election, 82% of the neighborhood where the Robinsons live voted for Trump, according to analysis from The New York Times.
To critics, however, Kirk was often viewed as a magnet for controversy who used his platform to spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, vaccines and transgender people.
Similar to some of what Gov. Spencer Cox had to say that morning, the Washington County statement also called for turning down the rhetorical temperature. After the politically motivated killing of a Minnesota state lawmaker in June — and recent near-misses involving the governors of Michigan and Pennsylvania — there’s concern Kirk’s killing could further accelerate the cycle of retaliatory violence.
Even though her neighbor committed this horrible act, Schwiermann hopes people will be slow to hate him.
“If he would have had better friends, maybe, or not been on social media — I think that that's what led him to this,” she said. “I'm sorry for him being filled up with a bunch of lies and crap in his brain.”
