While police are still investigating the killing, authorities have pointed to what they described as anti-fascist messages engraved on bullet casings in a rifle found near the deadly shooting as potential evidence of a political motive.
One bullet was inscribed with “Hey fascist! Catch!” – a message that Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Friday “speaks for itself.” A family member of Robinson’s told investigators that the suspected shooter “had become more political in recent years,” and in particular had lashed out at Kirk at a recent family dinner, Cox said.
But the messages on the bullet casings also included a mix of memes and allusions to video games, suggesting a deep immersion in an irony-soaked online world where meanings can be difficult to precisely decipher.
Those messages included a series of arrows representing the controls used to carry out an attack in the video game Helldivers 2 and lyrics of a popular Italian song linked to anti-fascists – but also popularized more recently in another game, Far Cry 2, and a Netflix series.
