Charlie Kirk’s family took the first step in filing a lawsuit against Utah Valley University over the security failures that led to his murder on September 10, 2025.
The family has filed a notice of claim, which serves as a precursor to a civil lawsuit, against the school, the state of Utah, and key people involved in campus leadership and security decisions. The filing alleges their “wrongful acts and negligence” led to the Turning Point USA founder’s assassination.
The Notice of Claim
Signed by Kirk family attorneys Loren Washburn, Brett Parkinson and Clifford Parkinson and dated September 9, the filing characterized Kirk as a “once-in-a-lifetime public and political figure” with “detractors” and “frequent death threats” that, it alleges, were “publicly known and reported on well before Mr. Kirk ever stepped foot on UVU’s campus.”
The filing highlighted the recent history of political violence–most notably the July 2024 assassination attempt against President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in which the gunman fired from a nearby rooftop, grazing the president’s ear and killing volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore–and asserted those named in the notice “tragically… failed to rise to the occasion… through a series of stunning failures and reckless decisions.”
According to the filing, those decisions included allowing the event to take place in an outdoor “fishbowl” venue without “dedicating sufficient security resources to make that venue safe,” assigning “only six campus police officers to an outdoor event with thousands of attendees, despite requests for additional officers,” and “ignoring the specific tip it was given regarding the risk associated with rooftop access.”
TPUSA allegedly passed along a student concern about the risk posed to Kirk by accessible rooftops on campus. The filing stated that TPUSA texted UVU Chief of Police Jeffrey Long about the tip. “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 (The Sorensen Student center as a couple of stair cases that go up to the walkways on the roof).’”
In the same exchange, the TPUSA official allegedly asked Chief Long for a security plan to address that concern. “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,” the person wrote. Chief Long responded, “I got you covered.”
The filing said this led TPUSA to “reasonably conclude” that UVU had a plan to address the identified risk and other similar risks, “most obviously the risk from other rooftops,” without their involvement.
“Those decisions ultimately rendered Mr. Kirk helpless to the rooftop shooter in an assassination that could have been avoided had the UVU Parties only taken reasonable steps to plan and oversee a safe event,” the filing claimed.
Legal Analysis
On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Dave Aronberg, co-host of The MK True Crime Show, and Rumble creator Viva Frei to discuss the notice of claim and how strong a civil case the Kirk family would have. Watch:
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Aronberg and Frei by tuning in to episode 1,399 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.