OREM, Utah (AP) — A few weeks prior to the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah, the sheriff’s department in central California spent three days conducting reconnaissance in preparation for Kirk’s speech at a local church in an area supportive of his views.
Officials assessed potential escape routes and identified local activists opposed to Kirk. On the day of the indoor event in Visalia, attended by 2,000 individuals, approximately 60 law enforcement officers ensured Kirk’s safe passage to and from the church. They even deployed a drone to monitor surrounding rooftops, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux explained.
“Given Charlie Kirk’s prominence, we needed to be particularly vigilant about potential scenarios,” Boudreaux stated. “As a well-known figure, we must ensure not just the safety of attendees but also his personal safety.”
Conversely, Kirk’s outdoor event at Utah Valley University last week had significantly less security. Campus police, with six officers — about a quarter of the force — worked at the event, which attracted 3,000 people, said Jeff Long, the campus police chief. It remains unclear if nearby rooftops were inspected; the shooter targeted Kirk from a considerable distance away on a building.
As Kirk traveled nationwide to promote his conservative beliefs on college campuses, he favored staying close to the students, facilitating conversations with attendees. The level of security varied widely, with campus police typically managing overall security while his private team focused on close protection.
The assassination at Utah Valley has spotlighted the responsibilities of campus police departments in safeguarding high-profile and polarizing political figures who frequently visit colleges. Experts have scrutinized several aspects, from the number of officers present to the choice of an outdoor venue, where Kirk was ultimately exposed to sniper fire.
The university’s security plan is not part of the Utah Department of Public Safety’s investigation into the shooting, department Commissioner Beau Mason said.
When Kirk spoke at Illinois State University in April, more than a dozen campus police officers patrolled the 700-person crowd, and more officers watched cameras trained on nearby buildings from an operations center. The same month, University of Wyoming police assigned about 15 officers to an indoor Kirk appearance.
In other cases, arrangements were similar to last week’s debate in Utah. At an outdoor Michigan State University event, a student organizer with the campus Turning Point USA chapter said there were eight to 10 campus officers. Kirk was founder of Turning Point USA, one of the nation’s largest political organizations with chapters on high school and college campuses.
Kirk’s own security team of around six people was present at each event.
Outdoor events are harder to secure
Security experts told The Associated Press they expect to see more events held indoors to protect against similar attacks, as outdoor events greatly increase vulnerability. College campuses are generally open and accessible, making them extremely susceptible to shootings, said Don Aviv, CEO of the security firm Interfor International.
Without monitoring rooftop access and blocking shooter sightlines, Aviv said, “it doesn’t matter how many armed personnel you have ringing the speaker, you would not have been able to protect against a long gun.”
Kirk requested to speak outside at Utah Valley so that he could engage with students, spokeswoman Ellen Treanor told the Salt Lake Tribune. When he visited campus in 2019, he spoke in a ballroom.
The desire by Kirk’s team to make him as accessible as possible complicated security planning, said Aaron Woodruff, police chief at Illinois State University.
“It makes it hard to protect somebody when you have people on all sides of him,” Woodruff said.
Woodruff ran a security plan past Kirk’s team by phone and then did a walk-through on site. Security cameras trained on nearby buildings allowed officials to monitor rooftops and surrounding areas, Woodruff said.
The up-close nature of Kirk’s interactions appealed to his followers, said Alex Bitzan, the TPUSA chapter president at Michigan State, who helped organize an April event held on a campus lawn.
“People are drawn to the open conversation. People are drawn to the fact that he’s unscripted,” Bitzan said. “When you’re outside in public like that, I don’t see what would solve what happened last Wednesday.”
Daniel Schoenherr, a photographer who covered the Michigan State event for the campus newspaper, recalled police on foot and at least two or three campus police cars nearby. Access to the event was easy. Schoenherr estimated that more than 1,000 people were there, many of them non-students. Kirk’s personal security focused on the immediate crowd.
“If someone was to throw a brick at Kirk — that wouldn’t happen. There was a lot of personal security close by,” Schoenherr said.
Experts say monitoring rooftops is key
The attempted assassination of President Donald Trump last year in Butler, Pennsylvania, should have raised concerns about the vulnerability of sniper attacks from nearby rooftops, said James Hamilton, who founded the FBI’s close protection school.
“Butler told people it’s not that hard to get a rifle, get up on a roof and shoot,” Hamilton said.
Private sector security has to make compromises based on clients’ desires, said Hamilton, who said it would have been much safer to hold Kirk’s events indoors.
A Utah Valley spokesperson did not respond to emailed questions seeking information about security planning, public safety officer assignments and whether rooftops were inspected.
“This is a police chief’s nightmare,” Long, the campus police chief, said last week. “You try to get your bases covered, and unfortunately today we didn’t, and because of that we had this tragic incident.”
For a University of Wyoming event in April, campus police reached out to Texas A&M and other universities Kirk had recently visited to better understand how they handled security, said campus Police Chief Josh Holland.
His officers checked the locks on building doors that would have allowed access to roof spaces. There were no metal detectors, Holland said, but the 1,800 attendees were prohibited from bringing bags into the venue at the university’s arts and sciences building. At Utah Valley, students were allowed to bring bags.
Turning Point USA did not respond to requests for comment about security protocol for Kirk’s events.
The organization said last week that Kirk had received “thousands” of threats but “always prioritized reaching as many young Americans as possible over his own personal safety.”
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Brook reported from New Orleans and Lauer from Philadelphia. Associated Press journalists Jim Mustian and Jake Offenhartz in New York and Ed White in Detroit contributed.
