On Wednesday, September 10, Charlie Kirk went to Utah and was killed.
He went there to visit the campus of Utah Valley University (UVU) as part of his role as president of Turning Point USA – a conservative student organization he founded that boasts over 800 chapters and tens of thousands of members. His visit was sponsored by the UVU chapter of Turning Point.
Within a few minutes of beginning his well-known Q&A dialogue with all comers, a shot rang out and, based on online footage of the scene, Kirk slumped over with what would be a fatal wound to his neck.
Ironically, Kirk was both an advocate for 2nd Amendment rights as well as a strong supporter of public-school safety, often pointing out that schools should be as safe as baseball games or airports, places where, in his words, mass shootings have never occurred due to safety precautions and procedures.
Charlie Kirk was a controversial and well-known media personality who traveled with a support team that included executive protection personnel who are usually armed off-duty and retired peace officers and military veterans who provide “close protection” to their clients. This often includes threat analysis, advance team route planning, the location of police, fire, and medical services, evacuation planning and more.
Kirk’s team probably knew to be prepared because universities, like K-12 schools, have been the scene of 260 mass shootings since the year 2000, resulting in 346 deaths, according to research from The Violence Project. The names are all too well known. Sandy Hook, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Uvalde, and many more. All were institutions that had security plans in place as did Utah Valley University.
The UVU community and visitors are served by the UVU Police Department, which publishes a fire and safety plan. That plan includes an active shooter protocol and instructions on shelter and secure in place procedures. Their report states: “UVU conducts several exercises each year, such as tabletop, functional, and full-scale exercises.”
For events like Turning Point’s rally, UVU makes its campus and facilities available to campus groups and members of the public and the police department “reserves the right” to staff special events at UVU. Similarly, the presence of EMT’s is also discretionary.
The college website indicates that 141 students had registered to attend the event, though reports estimate there were about 3,000 attendees in actuality. University police chief Jeff Long told reporters after the event that there were six police offers present, including plainclothes officers, and that the department had coordinated with Kirk’s security team.
Attendees told reporters that, though tickets were required, no tickets were checked, and attendees were not asked to go through security.
There are no reports yet if EMT’s were present.
UVU has learned the lesson that every school that falls victim to a mass casualty incident learns. There is a gap between policy and procedures – even ones that include the “tabletop, functional, and full-scale exercises” that UVU purports to organize – and the real thing.
In fact, most critical incident and emergency protocols are copies of other protocols that circulate agency to agency and are online or commercially produced and then modified onsite.
Further, most educational institutions conduct their training during summer months so as to not inconvenience or alarm the campus community if they are held at all. As for table top exercises, they are meaningless unless combined with the “functional and full- scale exercises” mentioned above and are drilled frequently.
There is much work to be done and safety budgets need to be prioritized. Sadly, at the same time Kirk was killed in Utah, one state away in Colorado, three high school students were shot at Evergreen High School.
What made Kirk a target for murder is being debated and many are attributing his often-controversial positions as a justification for his killing and even a cause for celebration.
The same scenario unfolded ten years ago when many around the world celebrated the murders of the 12 staff members at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine, because they published a cartoon portraying the Prophet Muhammed wearing a terrorist bomber vest.
Unfortunately, someone today is looking at the footage of Charlie Kirk’s murder, or maybe the report of the Evergreen High School shooting, and believe that their grievance can be solved in the same way. And there are others who are feeding that anger.
In that world none of us is safe.
It’s time to listen to our better angels and say Je suis Charlie too.
Steve Smith is a senior fellow in urban studies at the Pacific Research Institute, focusing on California’s growing crime problem.
