OREM, Utah — Nine days after the on-campus shooting death of Charlie Kirk, there are still things Utah Valley University is not sharing with the public regarding security.
University officials have said no threats were detected prior to the Sept. 10 rally where Kirk was shot, but what were the security plans, whether for a gunman or protestors interrupting the rally? Or just someone overheating in the sun?
That’s one of the questions FOX 13 News has been asking.
“I feel like there’s a lot being hidden from us that needs to be told,” said Liz Bennett, whose niece attends UVU but was not at the time of the shooting.
On Friday, Bennett drove from Plain City to attend the "Vigil for Unity" at the school.
“It seems like they just aren’t telling us what the security protocol was,” she claimed.
A day after the shooting, FOX 13 News submitted a public records request for the rally’s security plan. UVU has neither given us the records nor denied our request, instead replying on Wednesday that the school may need 15 more days to answer.
Years before Kirk shooting, concerns about security at Utah Valley University:
FOX 13 News has also made multiple requests to interview Val Peterson, the UVU Vice President for Administration and a member of the Utah House of Representatives, as well as school police chief Jeffrey Long.
None of the requests has been granted.
We want to ask school officials about what a former UVU police officer told us the day after the shooting, and confirmed by other officers still working in the Orem area, that officers for years had asked Peterson for more resources to stop shooters.
“We asked Val, and his comment to me and every other officer in that department that day: ‘It’s been 25 years. We haven’t had [a school shooting] and we’re not going to have one,’” said Bryan Cunningham.
The station has also been asking about any reviews of security at the time of the shooting. Such reviews have been conducted on other campuses, ranging from the Penn State sex abuse scandal to the 2018 murder of Lauren McCluskey at the University of Utah.
As of Friday, UVU has not specified if any review is underway, or if one will be conducted, or by whom.
“I think for the protection of all the students and for future people wanting to come here or even being able to do some kind of meeting like Charlie did, I think they definitely have to review and see where things went wrong and be able to correct that,” said Bennett.
