Craig Robinson FBI Raid

Submission 7,305

Overview

Craig Deleeuw Robinson FBI Raid refers to an FBI raid in early August 2023 on a Utah resident named Craig Robinson, which followed Robinson posting murder threats against United States President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Facebook, during which Robinson was killed by authorities. In the days following the raid, it became a viral subject of discussions and memes on social media.

Background

On August 9th, 2023, ABC News^[1] reported that at 6:15 a.m. EST that morning, the FBI performed a raid on a Utah man, ultimately killing him. The man was later identified as 75-year-old Craig Deleeuw Robinson, a Provo resident who repeatedly posted murder threats against U.S. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, District Attorney Alvin Bragg and others. The raid was carried out in anticipation of Biden's visit to Utah on August 10th.

Later that day, Twitter^[2]^[3] news accounts @disclosetv, @Breaking911 and others tweeted about the story. A tweet by @disclosetv received over 3,900 reposts and 16,800 likes in one day (shown below).

In the following hours, Facebook posts made by Craig Robinson in which he threatened to kill Joe Biden during his visit to Utah, among other threats against public figures, were widely circulated on social media (examples shown below).^[4]^[5] Many of the posts used Facebook Custom Background Posts, resulting in murder threats being combined with laughing emoji backgrounds.

Additionally, photographs of Robinson in combat gear and his weapons, shared by Robinson on Facebook, have also been posted by users on Twitter, Facebook and by the media (shown below).^[6]

Online Reactions

The news of the raid and the FBI killing Robinson became a viral subject of discussions on Twitter, with multiple posts going viral, and on 4chan. Some users sympathized with Robertson and criticized the FBI for killing him after Twitter^[7] user @JWhitebread1 made two tweets in which they claimed that Robinson "could barely walk with a cane" and "took care of his disabled adult son" (screenshot shown below, left).

For example, on August 9th, political commentator Benny Johnson made a tweet^[8] about Robinson's photographs being widely circulated immediately following the incident, with the post gaining over 9,300 reposts and 30,100 likes in one day (shown below, right).

Some users posted Fuck Around and Found Out comments about the incident. For example, on August 9th, Twitter^[9] user @mmpadellan made a post that received over 960 reposts and 5,000 likes in one day (shown below, left).

Several threads about the raid were also created on 4chan's /pol/^[10] and other boards. For example, a thread created by an anonymous user on August 9th, 2023, received over 290 replies before reaching the post limit (shown below).