Charlie Kirk's widow and children have filed a legal notice blaming Utah Valley University and its police chief for preventable security breakdowns that left the conservative leader exposed to a rooftop shooter, one year after he was killed on campus.
The Notice of Claim, dated September 9, 2026, names the State of Utah, Utah Valley University, the UVU Police Department, campus police Chief Jeffrey Long, and former UVU President Astrid Tuminez as respondents. Filed on behalf of Kirk's widow Erika, their two minor children, and potentially his parents Robert and Kathryn Kirk, the document lays out six categories of alleged negligence and signals that a formal lawsuit is coming.
Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was fatally shot on September 10, 2025, while speaking at an outdoor event on the UVU campus in Orem, Utah. Roughly 3,000 people were in attendance for the organization's "American Comeback Tour" stop when a gunman opened fire from the roof of a campus building. Tyler Robinson, the accused suspect, has pleaded not guilty and faces a criminal trial.
The filing's most damaging allegation centers on a text exchange between TPUSA staff and Chief Long before the event. A TPUSA official wrote to Long warning that a student group had flagged rooftop access near the speaking venue:
"Hello Chief Long, we received this message today from the student group.... 'there is student roof access pretty close to where [Charlie Kirk] will be set up at Utah Valley.' If this is true, it would be nice to either have it controlled access or allow one of my guys to be there as well. If Possible."
Long's reply, as reported by Breitbart News, was four words: "I got you covered."
He did not, the Kirk family alleges. The Notice of Claim states that UVU assigned just six campus police officers to the outdoor event, roughly a quarter of the department's full force. A request for additional officers was denied, the filing alleges, by then-President Tuminez. No written security plan existed. No security briefing took place. And no meaningful risk assessment was conducted before the university approved the outdoor location, the family's lawyers contend.
Brett Parkinson, legal counsel for the Kirk family, put it bluntly in a statement reported by Fox News:
"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 Notice of Claim enumerates six specific categories of negligence attributed to what the document calls "the UVU Parties." First, the university failed to grasp the significance of Kirk's campus visit, which the filing says led to inadequate preparation. Second, UVU permitted the event to take place outdoors without dedicating sufficient security resources. Third, only six officers were assigned to an event drawing thousands, despite requests for more. Fourth, UVU failed to exercise what the filing calls its "exclusive power" to keep Kirk safe. Fifth, the university ignored the specific tip about rooftop access that TPUSA had communicated to Chief Long. Sixth, the filing states flatly: "The UVU Parties' omissions, actions and misconduct led to Mr. Kirk's death."
The filing argues that UVU, not Turning Point USA, held the authority to block walkways, cordon off sections of campus, limit public access, or relocate the event entirely. TPUSA could request security measures. Only the university could implement them.
During Tyler Robinson's preliminary hearing, surveillance footage was shown that allegedly depicted someone running across the roof of the Losee Center, a campus building, to a position a police officer described as a "sniper's pad." The Kirk family's filing argues that if that footage had been monitored in real time, Kirk's death could have been prevented.
That claim underscores a broader pattern the filing describes: a university that had cameras but was not watching them, that had a police force but deployed a fraction of it, and that had a direct warning about the precise threat vector that killed Charlie Kirk, and responded with assurance rather than action.
The filing also draws a pointed comparison. The attempted assassination of President Trump by a rooftop shooter had occurred the previous year. The Kirk family's lawyers argue that the risk of a rooftop attack should have been "especially top-of-mind" given that Kirk was a close friend and political ally of the former president. Just The News reported that the filing highlights how TPUSA organizers had specifically warned Long about rooftop access to the Sorensen Center near the venue, yet that access was allegedly never secured.
Fox News reported an additional detail not included in the primary source's account: after Kirk was shot, no ambulance was available at the scene. He was transported to Timpanogos Regional Hospital in a private vehicle. For an outdoor event with 3,000 attendees and a high-profile speaker who had received publicly known death threats, the absence of standby medical resources adds another layer to the family's negligence claims.
The Notice of Claim describes Kirk as "a once-in-a-lifetime public and political figure" who built "the largest conservative campus and youth activist organization in America" in under a decade. His "outsized public influence came with costs and risks," the filing states, risks that were "publicly known and reported on well before" Kirk ever set foot on UVU's campus.
That framing matters legally. The family is not arguing that UVU should have predicted an unpredictable attack. They are arguing the opposite: that the threat was obvious, that it was communicated directly to the person responsible for campus security, and that the university's response amounted to a verbal promise followed by institutional inaction.
Under Utah's legal process, a Notice of Claim is a required precursor before a plaintiff can file a lawsuit against a government entity. The filing, addressed to the Utah Office of the Attorney General, puts the state and the university on formal notice that litigation is forthcoming. Neither UVU, Chief Long, Tuminez, nor the State of Utah has publicly responded to the claim based on available reporting.
Several questions remain unanswered. The filing does not specify a dollar amount for damages. The identity of the Kirk family's full legal team beyond Parkinson has not been disclosed. And the scope of "repeated warnings" referenced in the claim, beyond the single text exchange with Chief Long, has not been detailed publicly.
What has been detailed is damning enough. A university was told a rooftop near the stage was accessible. Its police chief said he had it handled. Six officers showed up for a crowd of three thousand. No security plan was written down. No briefing was held. And Charlie Kirk was killed by a shooter on a roof.
When the people responsible for safety promise they have it covered, the least the public should expect is that they actually try.
