Exclusive: ‘Come on bro let’s go hunting fairies,’ Joshua Cole wrote to a friend two days before the Abilene Pride Parade, according to an FBI probable cause affidavit reviewed by The Independent
The only actual evidence we’ve been shown is that he was largely apolitical but grew up in a MAGA family, and at some point in time began disliking CK, possibly due to a pendulum swing against his hard right family after moving out. There’s no real evidence to support that he was hard right or hard left, or in fact had any strong political affiliations. Only that he disliked the guy he shot enough to shoot him.
We have no idea why he killed Kirk. He is not going to talk because they said they would execute him before they caught him. The shooter now has no reason to cooperate.
Oh they definitely tried too, Fox News was talking about bombing the UN headquarters. It just happened to come out pretty quick that the dumb shits did it to themselves.
Doesn’t matter. That first dopamine hit about trans “rhetoric” got him and that is all his tiny little Texas brain needed. America is a giant puddle of gasoline and the regime here keeps flicking lit matches at it.
Hearing that old dude read the messages was pretty fucking telling that they are making that shit up. No kid, especially a terminally 4chan one, talks like that. Maybe the stuff about the wrapping of the weapon and where he left it, but no kid is talking like a WWII love sick soldier stuck overseas.
Careful. Confirmation bias makes it exceptionally easy to come up with reasons to disbelieve things that don’t fit what we presume about a topic.
I think it’s fair to say we don’t know the shooter’s motivations for sure. Being confident that the shooter was far right just because his family is seems just as terrible a conclusion to jump to. How many of us have conservative families we disagree with?
Yep, the kid came from a place that is whiter than the service of the moon. A place where nearly everyone belongs to at least two hardcore cults. A place so insulated, so terrified of any culture that isn’t their own. I would think it’s extremely unusual if he used a more modern tone and vocabulary.
I would think it’s extremely unusual if he used a more modern tone and vocabulary.
I don’t know that I’d find that unusual, either, honestly. Judging by the bullet memes, he was clearly very “online.”
People are complicated. It’s convenient and very tempting to put everyone into neat boxes, but individuals often don’t fit into those boxes. Not completely.
I’ve been very online since the most common connection speed was 9.6 kbps. Terminally online in both the pun and colloquial sense since 20 years before the term was coined.
Memes are memes. Not a language to themselves. You still generally reflect the larger community around you. While I largely choose to speak with a more neutral to even mid Atlantic accent. When I’m around it I easily fall back into rural southern/midwestern accents. Because that’s what I grew up around.
Why not? You didn’t know anyone in college who liked to speak differently sometimes, whether for fun, to be ironic, or to be flowery and “romantic”? People are figuring out who they are in college, some people do stuff other people might consider weird. That type of language doesn’t shock me at all.
Yeah, but they were dorks like myself and very much not inclined to be watching shit from the manosphere or shoot someone.
I know you’re just playing devil’s advocate, but you gotta Occam’s razor this shit i.e.; if you have to make so many assumptions you’re on the wrong path. What is most likely, is most likely by a large margin.
I don’t think so. That’s what a lot of people were speculating. But seems like he mostly grew up in a MAGA family, but was queer himself, so a bit alienated from the MAGA movement due to the homophobia within it and mostly stayed out of talking about politics with his friends. Seems like he mostly just saw Kirk as a danger to himself and those he loved because of Kirk doing things like promoting violence against queer people.
Source claiming Tyler was bisexual. Obviously not definitive evidence, but its not like they can do a blood test and prove his sexuality or something - they best you are likely to get is his friends saying he was or was not.
I wasn’t referencing him dating someone who is allegedly trans, since a man dating a woman wouldn’t be evidence of not being an allocishet. OTOH, if his lover is not trans, then it would be evidence that he isn’t straight.
Ok but where is a source reporting this? My googling is getting me Reddit or other right wing forum comments, or news articles repeating those comments as “sources”. Is it all just baseless speculation right now?
Oh I see, thanks for the clarification. I thought perhaps someone went around and interviewed people who knew the shooter and that’s what the “allegedly” was for (2nd hand but somewhat verified), since there’s so much information about the family out there too. My bad for the misinterpretation.
We have text messages between the shooter and the roommate. If you want to call those fake, that’s your right, but that’s going to be a major piece of evidence in the trial.
In the texts from the indictment, the shooter says:
I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.
The shooter also calls the roommate “my love”. There are some friends, neighbors, acquaintances corroborating that they were in a relationship.
The roommate’s gender identity isn’t 100% clear. There seems to be some evidence from social media accounts that they’re trans.
I don’t think you can call this shooter “far right”. Not clear that he’s a groyper in my opinion. The Discord messages are pretty milquetoast. I certainly wouldn’t call him a leftist either. Seems he was (more than) okay with LGBTQ folks, but that doesn’t tell you much about his broader views.
I’m not calling anything fake or a conspiracy, I’ve just been seeing a lot of people discussing things as facts and when I ask for firsthand sources (ie. the text messages you describe) they say they have personally don’t have one, someone just told them about it.
The OP provided a link for me though, so I was able to go through them myself as well. Your comment was also illuminating, thanks!
That means he is in a queer relationship, but not that he is queer. I suppose that doesn’t matter to conservatives either way.
Also that info is incredibly sus and sounds fake af. The way the fbi director talks is sus, as he clearly isn’t all that competent and keeps bragging about how quickly they could release info, which is not how investigations work.
I might’ve misunderstood? I thought you meant I had said this, or supported this claim.
But yes as far as I can tell there’s not much to suggest a strong political alignment of any kind. I don’t know what info we can trust that has been provided. If we take their statements at face value he was in a relationship with a trans person and found kirk hateful. He engraved memes from a video game on his bullets and shot this guy.
There were also some weird statements about his actions while running after shooting which confuse me, but it’s not something I’ve read all that much about.
I’m a bit lost. Wasn’t the killer a far right dude who disliked Kirk and MAGA for not being far right enough/in the same ways as him?
Can someone get me up to date?
Facts are irrelevant to these people. They trust nobody’s word beyond those who affirm what they want to believe.
The only actual evidence we’ve been shown is that he was largely apolitical but grew up in a MAGA family, and at some point in time began disliking CK, possibly due to a pendulum swing against his hard right family after moving out. There’s no real evidence to support that he was hard right or hard left, or in fact had any strong political affiliations. Only that he disliked the guy he shot enough to shoot him.
We have no idea why he killed Kirk. He is not going to talk because they said they would execute him before they caught him. The shooter now has no reason to cooperate.
It doesn’t matter what he believed, they have blamed it on the left so it’s now the left’s fault
they blame everything on the left.
Surprised they havent blamed trump having to climb up an escalator as an elaborate antifa terrorist attack on the sanctity of american decency.
They actually did
Oh they definitely tried too, Fox News was talking about bombing the UN headquarters. It just happened to come out pretty quick that the dumb shits did it to themselves.
They have though…
why am i not surprised.
Doesn’t matter. That first dopamine hit about trans “rhetoric” got him and that is all his tiny little Texas brain needed. America is a giant puddle of gasoline and the regime here keeps flicking lit matches at it.
I was also under the same impression, but it seems to have grown less clear?
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2025/09/15/tyler-robinsons-groyper-connection-truth-or-conspiracy-theory/
In any case, Kirk enjoyers have never been known to let facts get in the way of their hate
Hearing that old dude read the messages was pretty fucking telling that they are making that shit up. No kid, especially a terminally 4chan one, talks like that. Maybe the stuff about the wrapping of the weapon and where he left it, but no kid is talking like a WWII love sick soldier stuck overseas.
Careful. Confirmation bias makes it exceptionally easy to come up with reasons to disbelieve things that don’t fit what we presume about a topic.
I think it’s fair to say we don’t know the shooter’s motivations for sure. Being confident that the shooter was far right just because his family is seems just as terrible a conclusion to jump to. How many of us have conservative families we disagree with?
Yep, the kid came from a place that is whiter than the service of the moon. A place where nearly everyone belongs to at least two hardcore cults. A place so insulated, so terrified of any culture that isn’t their own. I would think it’s extremely unusual if he used a more modern tone and vocabulary.
I don’t know that I’d find that unusual, either, honestly. Judging by the bullet memes, he was clearly very “online.”
People are complicated. It’s convenient and very tempting to put everyone into neat boxes, but individuals often don’t fit into those boxes. Not completely.
I’ve been very online since the most common connection speed was 9.6 kbps. Terminally online in both the pun and colloquial sense since 20 years before the term was coined.
Memes are memes. Not a language to themselves. You still generally reflect the larger community around you. While I largely choose to speak with a more neutral to even mid Atlantic accent. When I’m around it I easily fall back into rural southern/midwestern accents. Because that’s what I grew up around.
I’m pretty sure the dude wasn’t going “oh my love how I long for thee” like the old dude was saying.
Why not? You didn’t know anyone in college who liked to speak differently sometimes, whether for fun, to be ironic, or to be flowery and “romantic”? People are figuring out who they are in college, some people do stuff other people might consider weird. That type of language doesn’t shock me at all.
Yeah, but they were dorks like myself and very much not inclined to be watching shit from the manosphere or shoot someone.
I know you’re just playing devil’s advocate, but you gotta Occam’s razor this shit i.e.; if you have to make so many assumptions you’re on the wrong path. What is most likely, is most likely by a large margin.
Thanks
Yes, but the fascists blamed it on trans people before the blood hit the floor.
omg no more late night show for you
I don’t think so. That’s what a lot of people were speculating. But seems like he mostly grew up in a MAGA family, but was queer himself, so a bit alienated from the MAGA movement due to the homophobia within it and mostly stayed out of talking about politics with his friends. Seems like he mostly just saw Kirk as a danger to himself and those he loved because of Kirk doing things like promoting violence against queer people.
Source that he was queer?
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/exclusive-leaked-messages-from-charlie
Source claiming Tyler was bisexual. Obviously not definitive evidence, but its not like they can do a blood test and prove his sexuality or something - they best you are likely to get is his friends saying he was or was not.
I wasn’t referencing him dating someone who is allegedly trans, since a man dating a woman wouldn’t be evidence of not being an allocishet. OTOH, if his lover is not trans, then it would be evidence that he isn’t straight.
Yeah, this is what I was looking for, not random comments that go through different filters. Google was giving me speculation garbage. Thank you!
He was allegedly in a relationship with his roommate, who may be trans.
Ok but where is a source reporting this? My googling is getting me Reddit or other right wing forum comments, or news articles repeating those comments as “sources”. Is it all just baseless speculation right now?
Yeah, that’s why I used “allegedly”, because these claims are very shaky and hard to prove one way or the other. A lot of it seems fabricated to me.
Oh I see, thanks for the clarification. I thought perhaps someone went around and interviewed people who knew the shooter and that’s what the “allegedly” was for (2nd hand but somewhat verified), since there’s so much information about the family out there too. My bad for the misinterpretation.
We have text messages between the shooter and the roommate. If you want to call those fake, that’s your right, but that’s going to be a major piece of evidence in the trial.
In the texts from the indictment, the shooter says:
The shooter also calls the roommate “my love”. There are some friends, neighbors, acquaintances corroborating that they were in a relationship.
The roommate’s gender identity isn’t 100% clear. There seems to be some evidence from social media accounts that they’re trans.
I don’t think you can call this shooter “far right”. Not clear that he’s a groyper in my opinion. The Discord messages are pretty milquetoast. I certainly wouldn’t call him a leftist either. Seems he was (more than) okay with LGBTQ folks, but that doesn’t tell you much about his broader views.
I’m not calling anything fake or a conspiracy, I’ve just been seeing a lot of people discussing things as facts and when I ask for firsthand sources (ie. the text messages you describe) they say they have personally don’t have one, someone just told them about it.
The OP provided a link for me though, so I was able to go through them myself as well. Your comment was also illuminating, thanks!
The same people hiding the pedos? OK I guess…
That means he is in a queer relationship, but not that he is queer. I suppose that doesn’t matter to conservatives either way.
Also that info is incredibly sus and sounds fake af. The way the fbi director talks is sus, as he clearly isn’t all that competent and keeps bragging about how quickly they could release info, which is not how investigations work.
The same people who provided this as “evidence” of the ICE shooters ideology.
Sure, but that certainly lowers the likelihood that he’s a far-right Kirk-hater, no?
Only if true
Obviously. But same goes for the accusations that he’s far-right – of which there doesn’t really seem to be anything to go off.
I might’ve misunderstood? I thought you meant I had said this, or supported this claim.
But yes as far as I can tell there’s not much to suggest a strong political alignment of any kind. I don’t know what info we can trust that has been provided. If we take their statements at face value he was in a relationship with a trans person and found kirk hateful. He engraved memes from a video game on his bullets and shot this guy.
There were also some weird statements about his actions while running after shooting which confuse me, but it’s not something I’ve read all that much about.
I make no claims as to why he did what he did. If he is the one that did it, I dunno.