Campus Police Failed to Cover Rooftops as Promised Before Assassination
Charlie Kirk Security Chief Brian Harpole says the Utah Valley University Police Department failed to cover campus roofs after promising, “I’ve got your back,” days before the Turning Point USA founder’s horrific murder. “We called him, he never called us back,” the law enforcement veteran said.
During a recent episode of The Shawn Ryan ShowHarpole told Shawn Ryan that he and his team raised concerns about rooftop exposure and drone restrictions in the days leading up to the deadly Sept. 10 event at Utah Valley University.
Watch below:
“We had concerns with the roofs. I mean, we have a place that we don’t like. We know what our responsibility is, we know what our statutory authority is, we know we can’t go up and put our guys in cyber observer positions,” Harpole explained.
According to Harpole, on September 8 – two days before Kirk’s killing – the head of security contacted UVU’s police chief, warning him about exposed roofs that students had access to, he said.
Harpole shared a purported screenshot of his text correspondence with “Chief Long,” which read:
Harpole: Hello, Chef Long – We received this message today from the student group. “There is roof access for students quite close to where CK will be located at Utah Valley (the Sorensen Student Center has a few stairs that go up to the roof walkways)”
Long: Do you want to access the roof?
Harpole: I was told that students had access above us, if this is true it would be nice to either have controlled access or allow one of my guys to be there as well. If possible.
Long: I’ve got you covered
“What else should I do when an official from an accredited police department says, ‘I have this zone’? Harpole said before revealing: “We called him. He never called us back.”
“And why this hasn’t been made public, and why he doesn’t stand up like a man and admit it, I don’t know,” added the founder of Integrity Security Solutions. “But he sees a group of men losing their careers and he’s OK with that.”
Even though Harpole couldn’t remember Long’s first name during the interview, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that he was referring to Utah Valley University (UVU) Police Chief Jeff Long.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Harpole said he also raised concerns about drone restrictions.
“I spent thousands of dollars on drones last year and got the guys’ licenses, but if the area is in Provo, Utah airspace, I can’t fly it. It’s a 107B, we can’t break the rules,” he said.
Harpole also noted that the Orem Police Department “could have flown drones” and has a SWAT unit, but was never contacted by the UVU Police Department for help, despite a mutual aid agreement.
“The UVU [Police Department] has jurisdictional power, it’s their campus. Orem [Police Department] is the outer city. They weren’t there because they weren’t asked to come,” Harpole said.
“And we can’t ask them to come. I can’t call the Orem police and say, ‘Hey, man, send me ten guys.’ I don’t have the authority to do that,” he added.
“But the school police have a memorandum of understanding [memorandum of understanding] or a mutual aid agreement with them. Why don’t we just call them and say, “Hey, can you send us ten guys here to watch?” “, lamented Harpole.
The security chief added that he “increased staffing to twelve” at Utah Valley University on September 10.
“We usually ran eight to nine,” Harpole said. “We increased it based on nothing [no articulable threat]because it’s like, “All right, we’re in kind of a place we don’t want to be.” » We were expecting a large crowd.
Watch the full interview below:
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and @ARmastrangeloand on Instagram.
