Craig Robertson, a Provo man killed by the FBI on Wednesday hours before President Joe Biden landed in the state, was “a kind and generous person” according to a statement released by his family yesterday.
Federal attorneys charged the 75-year-old with multiple crimes, including “threats against the president,” the Tribune previously reported.
Robertson posted pictures of weapons and the words “Death to Joe Biden” numerous times. In one February post, he wrote he dreamed of standing over the body of the U.S. attorney general “with a bullet hole dead center in his forehead.”
(Screengrab from court documents) This screengrab of a Facebook post put up by Craig Deleeuw Robertson on Oct. 3, 2022, shows a semi-automatic rifle that Robertson calls his "Democrat eradicator." Robertson was shot and killed by FBI agents in Provo on Wednesday morning.
(Read the full complaint which includes social media posts from Robertson here.)
Robertson’s family posted on Facebook that he was “always willing to assist another in need, even when advanced age, limited mobility, and other physical challenges made it more difficult and painful for him to do so.”
According to his family, Robertson was active in his local church congregation “and loved the Lord Jesus Christ with all his heart.”
They wrote that he “was understandably frustrated and distraught by the present and on-going erosions to our constitutionally protected freedoms and the rights of free citizens wrought by what he, and many others in this nation, observed to be a corrupt and overreaching government.”
His family acknowledged that Robertson’s statements “were intemperate at times” but wrote “he has never, and would never, commit any act of violence against another human being over a political or philosophical disagreement.”
(via criminal complaint) This Facebook post from Craig Robertson is referenced in a federal complaint charging Robertson with making threats against President Joe Biden. Robertson's page also had images of numerous firearms and a man in tactical gear, according to the complaint. FBI agents shot and killed Robertson Wednesday morning.
Neighbors of Robertson echoed some of these sentiments on Wednesday.
Andrew Maunder attended the nearby ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with Robertson and said “I think deep down, he was just a cranky old guy who was harmless.”
“He seemed like kind of a weird old guy … but everyone knows a weird old guy,” another man who lived in the neighborhood and attended church with Robertson said. “You wouldn’t imagine that the FBI would come and shoot him.”
“As our family processes the grief and pain of our loss,” Robertson’s family wrote, “we would have it be known that we hold no personal animosity towards those individuals who took part in the ill-fated events of the morning of August 9, 2023, which resulted in Craig’s death.”
Capping his visit to Utah on Thursday at a private fundraiser in Park City, Biden referenced the politics of fear and division in the country, and called for greater understanding and bipartisanship, including in public discourse. “This division is really, really hurting,” he told his supporters.
