Judge watches damning footage of Charlie Kirk's suspected assassin developing a stiff leg, heading to 'sniper pad'

Prosecutors must convince state District Judge Tony Graf over the course of this week's five-day preliminary hearing that they have sufficient evidence for him to try Charlie Kirk's suspected assassin, Tyler Robinson, for aggravated murder.

They have so far given Graf plenty to work with — and given the defense a great deal of explaining to do.

'The shoes are the same, and from my viewing and seeing Mr. Robinson on the video, it's the same person,' an investigator said.

Graf heard on Monday about: Robinson's alleged "sniper pad" on the roof of the Losee Center building, which overlooks the site at Utah Valley University where Kirk was fatally shot; the discovery of a red-and-black screwdriver at the "crime scene" that FBI Director Kash Patel previously alleged had Robinson's DNA on it; and the events immediately surrounding the shooting. The judge also saw — and was literally moved by — graphic footage of Kirk's murder.

The footage shown in court on Tuesday — which the defense wanted suppressed — was especially damning.

David Hull, a former Utah State Bureau of Investigation special agent who led the probe in the assassination, walked the court through a compilation of CCTV footage that he said shows Robinson's movements on Sept. 10.

According to Hull, the clips allegedly show Robinson:

• driving into a parking garage, parking, then walking off — wearing a backpack and dressed in Converse shoes, a ball cap, shorts, and a maroon T-shirt — to the university's quad area, where he allegedly made contact with representatives from Turning Point USA before returning to his car and driving off;
• wearing the same outfit, returning to the campus on foot, and walking to a fast-food restaurant on the northeast side of the area where Kirk was ultimately shot;
• walk after his meal into a wooded area on campus, then return wearing a new set of clothes, no longer carrying a backpack and now limping with a visibly stiff right leg and apparent hip-level bulge toward "the railing that gives access to the roof of the Losee building";
• ascending the staircase that affords scalers access to the Losee building rooftop just minutes before Kirk was shot — then rolling over the railing onto the rooftop;
• no longer limping but running along the rooftop of the Losee building "to what would be the southwest corner of the building," then crawling over to the apparent shooting position, where he was prone at 12:23:28 p.m., when a Utah Valley University police officer stated over his radio, "Alpha 34, we have shots fired. Charlie Kirk is down"; and
• running to the edge of the Losee building's rooftop, then dropping down onto a grassy area, then fleeing the scene with "some kind of object" in his hand.

"The shoes are the same, and from my viewing and seeing Mr. Robinson on the video, it's the same person," Hull said when asked about the suspect in the footage following his pre-shooting wardrobe change.

While Hull acknowledged in court that the surveillance footage of the suspect on the rooftop did not reveal any distinguishing facial features, the videos nevertheless provide a potentially convincing account of Robinson's movements on campus the day of the shooting.

The prosecution also showed footage of an encounter near Campus Drive between Tyler Robinson and a Spanish Fork police officer early on Sept. 11, the day after the assassination. This gave the officer pause and prompted him to make a note of the license plate number.

Once Hull learned of the encounter by Spanish Fork police and noted that the car involved matched the description of a car believed to be involved in the Kirk assassination, he ran the license plate. It was then he learned that the car was registered to Tyler Robinson and his mother, Amber.

The clips, along with enhanced versions with circled highlights, zooming, and other slight tweaks intended to help viewers understand what they were seeing, were admitted as evidence.

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