Federal law enforcement is probing Armed Queers Salt Lake City and other groups in Utah and online over whether they had advance knowledge of Kirk’s Sept. 10 assassination in Orem, The New York Post reported Sunday, citing a law enforcement source. Armed Queers SLC’s founder, Ermiya Fanaeian, has traveled to Cuba as part of a pro-communist program and worked for a China-friendly socialist activist group, according to news reports and archived webpages.
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Tyler Robinson, 22, climbed to a rooftop and fatally shot Kirk during a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University (UVU), driven by hatred of Kirk’s “political expression,” authorities alleged Tuesday. The defendant’s family told authorities he had leaned more to the left in recent years, contradicting his father’s values, and was dating a transgender roommate. Robinson’s previous online presence and members of a chat room that he belonged to are under investigation, as well as anyone close to him who may have known of his plans in advance, according to FBI officials.
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No evidence has surfaced that Robinson or his roommate were involved with Armed Queers SLC.
Armed Queers SLC did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the DCNF. Fanaeian did not respond to a direct message on X from the DCNF. The DCNF reached out to Pink Pistols, a group Fanaeian formerly worked with, in an attempt to ask for his contact information and did not receive a response.
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‘Training And Indoctrination’
Armed Queers SLC is listed as a member organization by the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), a U.S.-based group that offers trips to Cuba for Americans through its May Day Brigade program.
The NNOC has organized the May Day Brigade trips in coordination with the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP). Late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro created the ICAP to advance his communist propaganda efforts, according to a 2012 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report.
In a now-deleted May YouTube video, Fanaeian said he was told in Cuba that “it’s time for you to go home and make your own revolution” during a May Day Brigade trip, Just the News reported.
The NNOC did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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“The links to the NNOC and the May Day Brigade is perhaps most worrisome, because of NNOC’s direct links to the Cuban regime,” Shideler told the DCNF. “Historically the Cuban regime has used such ‘brigade’ trips to identify potential assets and provide additional training and indoctrination to such individuals, who then return to the states to engage in subversion, and sometimes violence.”
“It’s unlikely we would necessarily ever know whether this specific individual was selected for such a role,” Shideler said of Fanaeian.
In the wake of Black Lives Matter riots, Fanaeian endorsed violence as a means of political change in a 2020 interview with local news outlet KMYU while he was director of diversity and inclusion at the Associated Students of the University of Utah. Fanaeian attended the university from fall 2018 to spring 2024, earning a bachelor’s degree in political science, a campus spokesperson told the DCNF. He also served as an elected representative of the students’ association from 2019 to 2021, the spokesperson said.
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The Singham Network
As of 2022, Fanaeian was also an organizer for the Salt Lake City chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a socialist group involved in protests for leftist causes around the country, according to ABC4. Leaders of PSL have also held leading roles in groups funded by Neville Singham, a left-wing businessman reportedly based in Shanghai whose projects revolve around propagating pro-China narratives, the DCNF previously reported. For example, one woman has been a central committee member and presidential candidate for PSL and a founder of the Singham-funded People’s Forum and secretary of the Singham-funded BreakThrough BT Media.
Armed Queers SLC and the PSL have also participated in events together in Utah since at least 2023, archived webpages show.
The PSL did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment. Singham could not be reached directly.
“Given the relatively moderate Republican leanings common to Utah, it’s not surprising to see a handful of individuals appear again and again among far left groups, as they are likely pulling from a fairly narrow group of individuals predisposed to their cause,” Shideler said about Armed Queers SLC. “It’s also extremely common to see individual organizers create or utilize multiple organizations with overlapping memberships to make their movement appear larger than it is, and as organizers change the name of their groups to emphasize the current cause of the day.”
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Armed And ‘Anti-Fascist’
Gun-toting leftist groups are becoming increasingly common, according to Shideler, who told the DCNF he and his organization have tracked Armed Queers SLC’s activities for about 3 years.
Armed Queers SLC is dedicated to “the armed and militant protection of … oppressed people,” abolishing prisons, creating “a socialist society” and other goals, an online membership form says. “Participation in such armed Antifa groups or in armed demonstrations has been a common denominator related to far left attacks,” Shideler told the DCNF.
The most recent alleged case was a July 4 shooting ambush at an Alvarado, Texas, immigration detention facility that has led to more than a dozen arrests, Shideler noted. Some of the defendants, including alleged ringleader Benjamin Song, previously belonged to the leftist Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, The Washington Post reported, citing three people close to Song. The gun club’s members often show up dressed in black and armed with rifles to guard local LGBTQ events or protest conservative speakers.
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Armed Queers SLC is “fairly typical of the kind of armed ‘anti-fascist’ ‘community defense’ organizations which are becoming increasingly prolific on the radical left,” Shideler said.