Charlie Kirk's widow and children have filed a notice of claim against Utah Valley University and the state of Utah, alleging campus officials knew about rooftop security risks before the conservative leader was shot and killed, and failed to act.
The filing, signed September 9 and obtained by Fox News Digital, names Erika Kirk and the couple's two young children as prospective plaintiffs. It lays out a wrongful death claim and a "state-created danger" claim under the U.S. Constitution against the university, the state, and key individuals in campus leadership and security, including UVU Police Chief Jeffrey Long and then-university President Astrid Tuminez.
Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA and a father of two, was shot in the neck and killed on September 10, 2025, while speaking at his "American Comeback Tour" event in the campus courtyard at UVU in Orem, Utah. Authorities say 23-year-old Tyler Robinson took a position on the rooftop of the Losee Center, a building on the far side of the clearing, and fired the fatal shot. Robinson has pleaded not guilty.
The notice of claim, a required precursor to a civil lawsuit under Utah law, does not specify monetary damages. But its 26 pages paint a picture of institutional negligence so sweeping that Kirk's attorneys say his death was "entirely preventable."
One of the filing's most damaging allegations centers on a pre-event exchange between a Turning Point USA organizer and Chief Long. The organizer flagged that the Sorenson Center, a building described as "pretty close" to where Kirk would be speaking and directly west of the Losee Center, had accessible rooftop areas. The organizer wrote to Long: "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 alleged reply, according to the filing: "I got you covered."
He did not, the Kirk family's attorneys contend. The Losee Center rooftop, the very perch from which Robinson allegedly fired, was not secured. No officers were posted on any rooftop. The filing notes that students were known to frequent the Losee Center roof, where discarded beer bottles and other trash were regularly found. The risk was not hypothetical. It was, the attorneys argue, a known pattern of access that campus police ignored.
As Just The News reported, the filing explicitly invokes the attempted assassination of President Trump by a rooftop shooter the previous year as a reason the threat should have been obvious. The document states: "The risk of a rooftop shooter should have been especially top-of-mind given the attempted assassination of President Trump, Charlie Kirk's close friend and political ally, by a rooftop shooter the previous year."
The filing also references the home invasion attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and the murders of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, all cited as evidence that political figures face escalating threats and that institutions hosting them bear a heightened duty of care.
Kirk's appearance drew roughly 3,000 spectators to the outdoor quad, according to the filing. UVU assigned six campus police officers to secure the event, just 25 percent of the university's police force.
The filing alleges that Chief Long asked then-President Tuminez for permission to deploy more officers. She denied the request. After that denial, campus police did not reach out to neighboring departments in Orem or Provo for backup. The filing frames this as a cascading failure: the university's own police chief recognized the staffing was inadequate, his superior overruled him, and no one pursued an alternative.
The broader security posture was equally thin, the attorneys allege. Campus police had no written security plan for the event. No security briefing was held in advance. No drones were deployed to monitor rooftops. And campus security cameras, which later proved to have captured footage of Robinson running across the Losee Center roof toward what the filing calls a "sniper's nest", were not monitored in real time.
The filing states bluntly: "If such footage had been monitored in real-time, Kirk's tragic death could have been avoided." The New York Post reported that the family's legal notice describes the outdoor quad setting as placing Kirk in a "fishbowl", surrounded on all sides by tall buildings and elevated observation platforms with no meaningful protection.
Kirk was not naive about the dangers of his public life. At an event in May 2025, just months before his death, he told an audience: "We get death threats. People want to murder us." He added: "You should not have to walk around with security for your entire family and for myself just because you support a politician or political candidate or certain values."
The filing argues Kirk was "legally entitled to believe" that when UVU approved the event on its campus, the university would hold it in a venue and with security measures that made it safe. "Instead," the document states, "Mr. Kirk was exposed to the danger of a rooftop shooter that took his life."
Erika Kirk, who has publicly detailed her grief in the year since her husband's death, is now the lead prospective plaintiff. Kirk's parents, Robert and Kathryn Kirk, are also acknowledged in the filing as potential claimants.
Brett Parkinson, one of three attorneys representing the family, did not hold back about the university's responsibility:
"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. Those failures not only robbed Charlie Kirk of his life, but also robbed his family of their husband, father, son, and brother, with impacts that will compound for the rest of their lives."
Utah Valley University's public response to the filing has been minimal. The university said it is "aware of the notice of claim" and that it "addresses legal matters consistent with our established processes." It added: "Our focus remains on supporting our campus community."
The statement did not address any of the specific allegations, the rooftop warning, the denied staffing request, the absent security plan, or the lack of real-time camera monitoring. It did not mention Chief Long or former President Tuminez by name.
As Breitbart reported, the notice of claim alleges UVU failed to perform a meaningful risk assessment or understand the significance of Kirk's visit. The filing contends the university "could have declined to approve the Tour event in the outdoor quad location, or could have moved the venue indoors or to a more secure location, as it had done for controversial speakers in the past." That UVU had moved prior events indoors but chose not to do so for Kirk, a speaker who attracted 3,000 people and had publicly discussed receiving death threats, is one of the filing's sharpest points.
The filing's final allegation may be its most visceral. When Kirk was shot, first responders were not on scene. He was transported to Timpanogos Regional Hospital in a private vehicle, not an ambulance. The filing calls this a direct consequence of planning "so deficient" that even the aftermath of the shooting was handled outside normal emergency protocols.
Kirk, who spoke at the Republican National Conventions in 2016, 2020, and 2024, had built Turning Point USA into the country's largest conservative campus and youth-oriented activist organization. His death at 31 left behind a widow, two children, and an organization now navigating its future without its founder.
The criminal case against Tyler Robinson continues separately. Robinson's lawyers entered a not guilty plea on his behalf at an arraignment nearly a year after the shooting, and his defense team has argued he should not face the death penalty, which prosecutors have kept on the table. Surveillance footage reviewed at a preliminary hearing showed Robinson running across the Losee Center roof to his firing position, footage that existed on the day of the event but that no one at UVU was watching.
The broader climate of political threats continues to reshape how public figures and their families live. The Kirk filing's references to the Trump assassination attempt and the Pelosi attack reflect a pattern that has touched figures across the political spectrum, forcing families from the Trump family to congressional households to reckon with security in ways that were once unimaginable.
Meanwhile, the legacy Kirk built remains a target even in death. Vandals recently defaced a statue of Kirk at Turning Point USA headquarters just days after its unveiling, a reminder that the hostility he warned about in May 2025 did not end with his life.
Charlie Kirk told a crowd four months before he died that no one should need a security detail just for holding political beliefs. Utah Valley University had every warning, every reason, and every resource to prove him right. The filing says they chose not to bother.
