When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, many of us were asking hard questions about his security team and why the rooftop where the shooter was perched had not been monitored.
This was, to many, Security 101, but part of the mystery of that day's events has just been answered.
Kirk’s security boss is now pointing the finger at local authorities, but I cannot let him off that easily.
Somehow, Kirk’s assassin managed to get rooftop access to a nearby building with a direct line to Kirk’s position.
The killer was not a contract shooter, but just some raging lunatic who was upset with Kirk.
While some so-called experts believed that the shot itself proved that this was a skilled marksman, I took the opposite stance, believing that the neck shot was likely a missed head shot, with the shooter not accounting properly for the wind and downward angle involved.
But again, how did the shooter manage to get access to that rooftop without anyone noticing?
Brian Harpole of Integrity Security Solutions was providing Kirk’s security detail that day, and now he is claiming that he thought the rooftop was covered by someone else.
He recently shared text messages he exchanged with Utah Valley University (UVU) police regarding his concerns about that specific position.
Harpole was exchanging messages with Chief Jeffrey Long that day about roof access and restrictions put on the security team due to local law. He explained, “He comes back and the so, for edification, the Sorenson Center was the building in front of the Losee Center and so, he comes back he says you want uh access to the roof and came back and said I was told students have access above us.”
He continued, “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. He comes back and his last correspondence was, ‘I got you covered.’ What else am I to do when a command level person from an accredited police department says, ‘I’ve got this area.’?”
According to Harpole, many of the tools he would have used to protect Kirk were taken off the table due to local law, including the use of his security drones. Another local police department has a drone unit, but UVU, according to Harpole, did not have a required agreement in place to work with them during this event.
He explained, “And then you had secondary restrictions, probably due to heavy foot traffic with the school. But I can’t go in and break the rules. There’s laws for a reason. And so, now the school could have flown drones, the PD, but they didn’t have them. But Orem PD has a drone unit, active, professional and that police department, I will tell you, is awesome. They were there, they helped, both on the soft side and the hard side.”
Regarding the rooftop position, he added, “This is not a State Department job, I don’t have an ITAR, and this isn’t Iraq. This is Utah. I can’t go in and set up observation points with snipers.”
Maybe not, but his job was to keep his client safe, so when he saw there was no coverage on that roof, in my opinion, he had two options. He could have talked to local officials about blocking that position off again, or he could have told Charlie that he could not go before the crowd until that position was secure. This, to me, was an epic failure of a basic security protocol. I just cannot accept him passing the buck on this.
