Utah Valley University made some serious mistakes. The family of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has filed a notice of claim that a “series of stunning failures and reckless decisions” made by Utah Valley University (UVU) left Kirk open to being fatally shot while speaking on-campus last year. The notice, filed with Utah’s Office of the Attorney General on September 9th, a day before the one-year anniversary of Kirk’s assassination, argued that his death was “entirely preventable.”
“Charlie Kirk was violently and publicly assassinated while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University (UVU),” Brett Parkinson, counsel for the Kirk family, said in a statement to The Daily Wire. “His murder was entirely preventable and, in fact, would not have happened had the State of Utah and UVU followed through on their stated security promises, which included protecting the rooftops surrounding the quad where Charlie was speaking.” The filing names the state of Utah, UVU, the UVU Police Department, UVU Police Chief Jeffrey Long, then-UVU President Astrid Tuminez and others. While it is not a lawsuit, it preserves the family’s right to pursue legal action in the future.
Kirk was killed less than 30 minutes into his first stop on Turning Point USA’s “The American Comeback” speaking tour when a bullet fired from a rooftop struck his neck. He was speaking before a crowd of about 3,000, according to authorities. “Through a series of stunning failures and reckless decisions, the UVU Parties created a foreseeable danger to Charlie,” the notice alleged. “Those decisions ultimately rendered Mr. Kirk helpless to the rooftop shooter in an assassination that could have been avoided had the UVU Parties only taken reasonable steps to plan and oversee a safe event, steps outlined below that have been standard practice for other universities hosting controversial speakers.”
It claimed that UVU police were specifically warned by Turning Point USA — the conservative organization founded by Kirk — about accessible rooftops near where Kirk was to speak during the open-air event, and that the university falsely suggested it had addressed the security concern. he organization said it received a message from a student warning that there was “student roof access pretty close to where [Charlie Kirk] will be set up” at the Sorensen Student Center. When this was brought to the attention of Long, the police chief responded, “I got you covered.”
The notice emphasized that rooftop security had become increasingly important in light of the political environment, citing multiple examples of political violence that occurred in the months leading up to the Turning Point event. “Mr. Kirk’s visit occurred when political violence had hit a fever pitch,” it read. “Famously, President Trump was shot by a rooftop sniper during the 2024 presidential campaign.”
“Another would-be assassin of President Trump was intercepted on a golf course only two months later,” the filing continued. “Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) husband was brutally attacked in their California home. And a state legislator and her husband were ruthlessly murdered in their home in Minnesota. It was in this environment political danger that the UVU Parties chose to host Charlie and the Tour.” The notice alleged that there was no real-time CCTV monitoring —which is especially shocking given that later video footage showed the shooter moving across a rooftop before the attack — that the school did not deploy any drones to monitor rooftops in the area and that UVU police did not have a written security plan for the event. Days after the shooting, UVU announced it would initiate a “comprehensive independent review” of the tragic incident with an “external organization.”