Who is the Main Line man who went heavily armed to the West Chester ‘No Kings’ rally? It’s complicated.

When Kevin Krebs was arrested this month for bringing guns and ammunition to a “No Kings” rally in West Chester — then rearrested two days later after police found a stockpile of homemade bombs at his house — the hot takes ran the political gamut.

“Pennsylvania police stopped one of these crazies from harming ‘No Kings’ protesters,” read the headline of an Esquire blog post that compared Krebs to the Jan. 6 insurrectionists and blamed President Donald Trump for allowing “anti-government lunatics” to “operate in the open.”

Kate Collins, an official with the Chester County Young Republicans who has a sizable Facebook following, wrote that Krebs was, instead, a liberal brainwashed by the media.

“This is what happens when the media, politicians, and activists push the lie that the country is under siege by MAGA,” Collins opined.

That Facebook post immediately spawned another round of diametrically opposed theories, with local Democrats and Republicans insisting that Krebs was a member of the other party:

One commenter described him as a “raging liberal” who was planning to shoot Trump supporters opposing the protest, citing a neighbor. Another countered that Krebs had “been repping MAGA since 2020,” citing an August 2020 Instagram post that shows Krebs wearing a “Trump Train” hat.

So who is Kevin Joseph Krebs?

The 31-year-old licensed electrician from Malvern is registered as a Democrat. But only a couple months ago, records show, he was a Republican.

Krebs voted for Trump, he wrote on Reddit in February. But he soon came to regret it, he wrote, after “Elon Musk went in and started gutting everything.”

» READ MORE: Malvern man arrested for bringing gun to ‘No Kings’ rally had handmade bombs in his home, police say

Chester County District Attorney Chris de Barrena-Sarobe said at a news conference Monday that investigators are still trying to determine whether Krebs’ arrest was a “thwarted act of domestic terrorism.” The prosecutor said the case does not necessarily fit neatly into existing political narratives.

“This arrest is not something that can be distilled down to a social media post,” he said. “It can’t be fed into some short video that an algorithm feeds us online.”

Barrena-Sarobe also noted that Krebs’ family has told investigators he is on the autism spectrum.

“This is a unique case,” he said. “It has a ton of nuance.”

An examination of Krebs’ social media activity — particularly a Reddit account with the same username and profile photo as Krebs’ Instagram account — shows how the former Home Depot employee drifted in recent months from conversations about home-improvement projects to violent rhetoric aimed at Trump and police officers.

Within weeks of Trump’s inauguration, for example, Krebs wrote that he would “consider using physical force and/or sabotage” if Musk or Trump tried to cut Social Security payments to his parents or if the Trump administration began “rounding up trans and LGBTQ people and sending them to … Guantanamo Bay.”

(Krebs wrote in 2023 on Reddit that he came out as gay two weeks before the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., and started carrying a gun after the shooting.)

In March, Krebs wrote that if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act, “I believe we should rise up and kick off the revolution.” In an ominous follow-up comment posted a couple minutes later, he wrote: “If he says he wanted to be king, well he can be king, however he will be treated the way the Irish, the American revolutionary’s as well as the French treated their kings.”

In the lead-up to the “No Kings” protest, Krebs had also been railing against the police.

On June 10, for example, in response to a Reddit video showing Philadelphia police clashing with a protester, Krebs wrote, “A sucker in a uniform waiting to get shot,” quoting a 1988 song from the rap group N.W.A.

Commenting on an earlier post out of Seattle in the r/MarchAgainstNazissubreddit, Krebs wrote, “ACAB [All Cops Are Bastards]. Oink oink piggy.” That comment received nearly 300 upvotes.

Recently, Krebs appeared to be interested in Irish republicanism, going back to World War I, and the Irish Republican Army, from the former paramilitary organization’s bomb making techniques to its fashion choices.

On Reddit, he would frequently bring up the IRA and armed conflict in Ireland. For example, he responded to a video about an oarfish washing ashore in Mexico by writing that “the US has officially fallen into fascism and is quickly sliding into a civil war type scenario that could be worse than the [T]roubles.”

At the “Hands Off!” protest in Washington in April, Krebs posted a photo of himself in a camouflaged shirt and black balaclava, waving the Irish Republic flag flown by rebels over the Dublin post office during the 1916 Easter Rising.

He’s also inquired about paramilitary training on the Socialist Rifle Association subreddit.

» READ MORE: Police seek public’s help as they investigate Main Line man who brought a gun to ‘No Kings’ protest

Krebs does not have a history of violent crime, records show.

In November 2020, Jerrold Czech Jr., then an officer with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, charged Krebs with a summary offense after he confronted him sawing the antlers off a dead deer along the road in Delaware County.

“I was like, ‘That’s weird,’” Czech said Wednesday. “He wasn’t even a hunter. Hadn’t hunted before, had no license.”

Czech recalled that Krebs, who later pleaded guilty to a wildlife violation and paid a fine, was polite, and said he just didn’t know the law.

“He just seemed eccentric or something,” Czech said. “Like, a little bit special.”

Krebs appears to have taken an Irish Republic flag with him to the “No Kings” protest in West Chester on June 14, according to video of his arrest. (The flag is to the left in the video, which contains coarse language).

When police confronted Krebs, they found him carrying a loaded Sig Sauer handgun without a concealed-carry permit, along with a bayonet, pepper spray, and other weapons. He was also carrying several magazines of ammunition for an assault-style rifle that was in his car nearby, authorities said.

When police searched his home on Monday, they found 13 handmade pipe bombs, along with components used to make detonators, and tactical vests and bullet-resistant armor, according to court filings.

Some of the bombs were packed with nails and screws, and appeared to have been assembled using metal pipes and other household components, investigators said. Krebs had 21 guns in all.

He is being held without bail on charges that include possessing weapons of mass destruction, causing catastrophe, reckless endangerment, and related crimes.

Law enforcement sources familiar with the case said this week that it’s unclear what Krebs’ motives were for building the explosives and amassing the cache of weapons. There was no indication he was part of any extremist groups or had any immediate plans to use the pipe bombs.

Krebs’ attorneys and relatives have not returned requests for comment.

Chester County investigators are being assisted by the FBI and the United States Attorney’s office.

Inquirer news developer Chris A. Williams and reporter Rodrigo Torrejón contributed to this article.