UVU police chief promised to secure rooftops, head of Charlie Kirk’s security team says

Two days before Charlie Kirk was set to speak at Utah Valley University, the head of his contracted security team texted the school’s police chief. He was worried.

The student group that invited Kirk had told Brian Harpole that it was aware some of the campus’ rooftops were easily accessible — and some of those roofs were on buildings that looked down on the open courtyard where Kirk was going to speak. Harpole, who was a police officer before starting his own private security company, knew that posed a serious risk.

He asked UVU police Chief Jeff Long if the school could have officers patrol that — or allow Harpole to assign “one of my guys to be there as well.”

The chief allegedly responded: “I got you covered.”

Harpole held up his phone to show the text exchange during an interview on “The Shawn Ryan Show.” The episode, featuring what is believed to be the first interview Harpole has given since Kirk’s assassination, was posted Monday.

To his knowledge, Harpole said no one from UVU ever ended up being assigned to check the roofs or be stationed at the doors, and no one from his team was allowed access.

And just minutes into Kirk began his appearance at the Orem campus on Sept. 10, a single shot was fired from the top of the Losee Center, hitting Kirk in the neck and killing him.

Speaking with Ryan, a former Navy SEAL, over a nearly three-hour interview, Harpole comes down hard on UVU for not adequately preparing for Kirk’s appearance — and limiting his Harpole’s private security team from being able to fill in the gaps.

“What else am I to do?” Harpole asked Ryan. “I can’t go in and break the rules. There’s laws for a reason.”

Harpole said he has since tried calling Chief Long to talk. “He’s never called us back,” he said.

UVU did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

Harpole runs a company called Integrity Security Solutions, started in 2022, which contracted with Turning Point USA, the organization that Kirk founded. He had been working for Kirk before then, too, since 2018, to provide personal security to the conservative firebrand known for his debates with college students.

The UVU stop was meant to be the first on a new campus tour. Harpole said his team spent weeks preparing for the visit, mapping out the campus and planning how they would set up in the courtyard for maximum security.

He said he was initially upset when he learned that UVU had assigned the event to be held in that open outdoor space.

“This is horrible,” he recalled thinking. “It’s a beautiful amphitheater there at UVU, but you’re a tactician — if you’re somewhere and you’re covered from an elevated position 180 degrees, it’s horrible.”

Since the event, he said many people have criticized his security team for allowing the event to be held there. But Harpole said he didn’t have a choice.

“That’s where they told us we had to have it,” he said. “We weren’t optioned out anywhere else. It’s permitted. And the school said this is where you have to have it. We don’t get to argue with them.”

Harpole’s comment contradicts previous statements from UVU, which said Kirk’s team requested that space because Kirk liked to set up in central locations where students would be walking past and could stop to engage in conversation.

Harpole acknowledged that Kirk preferred those kind of spaces, without metal detectors or other barriers for people to attend.

“Charlie liked it,” he said. “It wasn’t ticketing. You didn’t have gates. People, regular people, showed up.”

In recent years, though, Harpole said he tried to warn Kirk that open spaces were not safe. At a similar event in San Francisco, he said, attendees jumped the protective fences. In New Mexico, he said, his security team had to physically fight a crowd to get Kirk out. Kirk also routinely received threats.

“We had spoke to him about it before [saying], ‘Man, this is getting dangerous,’” Harpole said. “And his response was, ‘I know.’ … His mentality was that this is worth it. We’re making gains here.”

Harpole said he was immediately concerned, though, when he received the message from the UVU student group about the rooftops. Now, he said, he wants to know why the police chief hasn’t said anything about it publicly.

“Why this hasn’t come out and why he won’t stand up like a man and admit this?” Harpole said.

Long has previously said about that day: “You try to get your bases covered and, unfortunately, today we didn’t.”

The Salt Lake Tribune has submitted a public records request for the communications between Long and Harpole.

Pointing blame at UVU

Turning Point USA has previously said that they had eight private security staff at the UVU event. In the interview, Harpole said he actually had 13 guards present. And there was an additional security lead, Dan Flood, who works for Turning Point USA and is directly assigned to protect Kirk.

UVU has said they had eight officers on site — six in uniform and two in plain clothes.

One of Harpole’s biggest criticisms of the school is that he said they didn’t ask local law enforcement agencies to assist with the event, which drew more than 3,000 attendees.

The school has previously declined to say if it requested outside help for Kirk’s appearance from Orem or Provo police departments.

“They weren’t there,” Harpole said. “They hadn’t been asked to come. And we can’t ask them to come. I can’t do that. I don’t have the authority to do that.”

Harpole said he later learned that Orem’s police department has a memorandum with UVU to provide backup when needed, and that the outside agency also has drones that UVU could have used to patrol that day. He said Orem told him they were not asked to help.

“Swallow your pride or whatever it is,” Harpole said of UVU’s department.

Harpole said his team also has drones, but wasn’t allowed to fly them because of local laws. And he wasn’t allowed to station his staff on any rooftops without express permission from UVU, which they never got.

So instead, he said, his team focused on the 30 meters directly around Kirk that day to provide a “close protection bubble.”

“We had people for our assignment,” he said. “Personal security detail is just that — personal.”

Harpole said he specifically requested that UVU close off the walkway directly above the courtyard, worried that people might be able to throw objects down onto Kirk. The school, he said, closed the walkway, and stationed an officer to stand watch there.

UVU also assigned an officer, he said, to stand with Kirk’s team in the zone they had cordoned off with bike racks and other barricades to provide a buffer area for Kirk to speak.

Outside of that, he said he doesn’t feel the university did much to patrol the major event and assess for risks. He again blamed Chief Long.

“Do I need to call a grown-ass man and say, ‘Hey, are you doing your job?’” Harpole said.

UVU has largely declined to answer questions, saying it is waiting until an independent review is conducted into what happened that day.

Harpole has his own questions, too, about the day. He wants to know how early the alleged shooter — Tyler James Robinson — accessed the roof, including if he went up there before that day to plan the shot.

Robinson, 22, has since been charged with aggravated murder and other counts in Kirk’s death.

Harpole also wants to know if anyone helped Robinson. And he is pushing for the security footage to be released — along with the chief’s messages with him before the event.