A 19-year-old man has been arrested on allegations of vandalizing a memorial to the Turning Point USA executive director Charlie Kirk outside the organization’s headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona.
Ryder Corral was arrested at 9.50am on Sunday by Phoenix police after witnesses say they saw a man damaging a memorial for Kirk, who was killed four days earlier in Utah.
“Officers were in the area to assist with traffic control due to a large community presence in the area following recent events,” said Sgt Phil Krynsky, a spokesperson for Phoenix police. Corral now faces criminal damage and disorderly conduct charges.
Videos posted online showed a man walking through the memorial over flowers and other mementoes before he was grabbed by another man, thrown to the ground, and arrested by nearby officers.
The man in the videos was later identified by Krynsky as Corral, according to Arizona Central.
News video showed Corral wearing a T-shirt showing an American flag and an eagle that was similar to one worn in surveillance photos by Kirk’s suspected killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, whose arrest was announced on Friday after a two-day manhunt. But police have not said whether they believe Corral meant to genuinely express anything with the shirt.
Robinson was “not cooperating” with authorities after the arrest and had not confessed to carrying out the shooting, Utah’s governor, Spencer Cox, told news shows on Sunday. The governor said authorities were still trying to establish a motive for the killing, though Cox made it a point to say investigators’ interviews with people close to Robinson revealed the suspect had views that were in opposition to Kirk’s.
Kirk was killed on Wednesday at an open-air event held by Turning Point USA at Utah Valley University.
Corral’s arrest came a week before Kirk’s funeral service is set to be held on 21 September at the 63,000-seat stadium where the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals play. The stadium is in a suburb of Phoenix.
Also on Sunday but in Utah, authorities said they had arrested two men on suspicion of placing an incendiary device under a Fox News media vehicle in Salt Lake City.
The bomb did not go off, having been lit but failing to function as designed, according to court records cited by the Utah CBS affiliate KUTV.
