Charlie Kirk Family Files Wrongful Death Claim Against Utah

"I got you covered," Chief Jeffrey Long responded.

The text had come from Turning Point USA staff Charlie Kirk was scheduled to speak outdoors at Utah Valley University. A student message had been passed along: there is student roof access pretty close to where Charlie Kirk will be set up at Utah Valley. The TPUSA official asked that if the tip was 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 reply was brief. The organization took it to mean the campus police had a plan for the rooftops around the quad.

On September 10, 2025, Kirk stood in the Fountain Courtyard at Utah Valley University in Orem as the first stop on Turning Point USA’s American Comeback Tour. A crowd of roughly three thousand had gathered. The shot that killed him came from the roof of the Losee Center for Student Success, approximately 415 feet from where he was speaking. Prosecutors would later identify the shooter as Tyler Robinson, then 22. Robinson was charged with aggravated murder, bound over to stand trial, and prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty. Campus surveillance footage shown at his preliminary hearing allegedly captured a figure running across the Losee Center roof to what one officer called a sniper’s nest or pad.

A year later, nearly to the day, attorneys for Kirk’s family put the state of Utah on formal notice. The notice of wrongful death and survivor claims, dated September 9, 2026, and addressed to the Utah Office of the Attorney General, was sent by counsel Brett Parkinson. It named prospective defendants that included Utah Valley University, the State of Utah, the UVU Police Department, Chief Long, former UVU President Astrid Tuminez, and possibly others. The prospective plaintiffs were listed as the Kirk estate, Erika Kirk and the couple’s two children, and Charlie Kirk’s parents, Robert and Kathryn Kirk. Public reporting of the notice followed on September 16, 2026.

“Through a series of stunning failures and reckless decisions, the UVU Parties created a foreseeable danger to Charlie,” the notice alleged. “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 document argued that the university had failed to conduct a meaningful risk assessment before approving the outdoor location and had not dedicated enough security. Only six campus police officers were assigned. Tuminez, the notice said, denied a request to add more officers. UVU did not seek help from the Orem or Provo police departments.

The notice returned again and again to the roofs. “If such footage had been monitored in real-time, Kirk’s tragic death could have been avoided,” it alleged, pointing to the surveillance video later shown in Robinson’s case. Drones were not used for rooftop security, the claim continued. The risk, the lawyers wrote, should have been obvious. “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 notice stated. It placed Kirk’s appearance against a wider backdrop of political violence that also included the 2025 murder of a Minnesota state legislator and her husband and the 2022 hammer attack on the husband of Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Charlie Kirk had co-founded Turning Point USA in 2012 and remained its public face and executive director until his death. Born Charles James Kirk on October 14, 1993, in the Chicago suburbs, he built a national profile hosting campus debates, mobilizing young conservatives, and aligning closely with Donald Trump and the broader Republican right. By the time of the American Comeback Tour stop in Orem, he was a polarizing figure who, the notice said, faced frequent death threats that were well known even before he arrived. The claim described him as a once-in-a-lifetime public and political figure. It also described the setting chosen for him that day in blunt terms. “Placing a politically controversial figure like Charlie Kirk in an outdoor event in the quad surrounded by tall buildings and other elevated observation platforms is accurately described as walking him into a fishbowl,” the notice of claim states.

The planning failures, according to the family, extended past the moment of the shot. When Kirk was hit, the notice said, first responders were not available in the way the family believed they should have been. He was transported to Timpanogos Regional Hospital in a private vehicle rather than an ambulance. The claim does not state a specific dollar amount. Under Utah practice, lawsuits are typically filed ninety days after a notice of claim is made. The notice itself was the step that preserved the family’s right to sue.

Parkinson, speaking for the family, framed the filing as a matter of accountability. “Charlie Kirk was violently and publicly assassinated while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University (UVU). 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,” he said. “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. Justice and accountability under the law are key tenets of the American judicial system. This claim preserves the right of Charlie Kirk’s family to pursue accountability for Charlie’s death.”

The record of that September afternoon in Orem remains fixed in the distances and the assignments the notice now cites: six officers on the ground, a tip about roof access answered, a shot from more than four hundred feet away across the Fountain Courtyard, and a private vehicle carrying Kirk to Timpanogos Regional Hospital.