Utah Valley University released an independent review Thursday finding that the campus had no written security plan, conducted no attendee screening, performed no real-time camera monitoring, and assigned just six officers to the outdoor event where conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot, according to posts circulating the findings.
The review, described by the account @KanekoaTheGreat as "BREAKING," stated that UVU's independent review of the Kirk assassination found those deficiencies while also clearing staff of acting in bad faith. The same account, quoting the review's characterization, said the university's failures did not amount to deliberate misconduct.
The Washington Post reported that security "should have been more stringent" at the college event, according to the new review released by the university. The Washington Times carried the story under the headline "Report finds many security deficiencies at Utah university where Charlie Kirk was killed."
According to other coverage of the same review, the report says Kirk's Turning Point USA organization insisted he speak outdoors despite security concerns, while the university did not properly assess dangers including the possibility of a rooftop shooter. Newsweek reported that the independent review shows "several actions, omissions, circumstances, and institutional practices" warrant attention as UVU considers how to strengthen security.
The review determined that the university did not "act in bad faith" ahead of the event, but identified several security shortfalls ahead of Kirk's murder, according to reporting on the findings. ABC4 reported that Utah Valley University published the independent review of the events surrounding the campus shooting on September 10, 2025, that resulted in Kirk's assassination. PBS News reported that the review says Turning Point USA insisted on the outdoor venue while the university failed to properly assess the rooftop threat.
The account @KanekoaTheGreat offered additional context on the decision to hold the event outdoors, writing that Kirk "wanted outdoor events to draw in people walking by" and that "anybody in the crowd could have brought a gun." The post added that Kirk "warned about assassination culture spreading on the left and had his own security team because of it," and that "he knew he put himself at risk whenever he publicized where he" would appear. The post was cut off at that point.
The assertion that Kirk was killed, and the circumstances surrounding the shooting, are the subject of the review being described. Next News Network could not independently verify the underlying claims or the details of the review as characterized in the social media posts and coverage cited here.
Separately, the account @clashreport cited a New York Times report confirming an earlier Haaretz report that United Arab Emirates President MBZ warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before October 7 that Hamas was preparing a major attack. According to five former senior Israeli officials cited by the Times, the warning never reached Israel's security leadership, according to the post. That item is unrelated to the UVU review.
Also circulating Thursday was a FreightWaves segment on cargo theft, which reported that fraudulent pickups, GPS spoofing, and trailer theft are skyrocketing while questioning whether the survey methodology behind those figures is sound. The segment cited a SmartSense report showing that seventy-nine percent of security professionals are more concerned about organized cargo crime than ever before.
The FreightWaves discussion noted that forty percent of loss prevention professionals surveyed said cargo theft is costing their organizations at least one million dollars annually, while twenty-eight percent reported losses exceeding two million dollars. The survey covered one hundred fifty US-based professionals working across loss prevention, security, logistics, and risk management. Seventy-nine percent said they are more concerned about cargo theft today than ever before, and eighty-one percent believe the crime has become increasingly more organized.
Fraudulent pickups and carrier impersonation topped the list of concerns at seventy-eight percent, followed by spoofing at seventy-one percent and trailer theft at sixty-six percent. Double brokering came in at sixty-four percent, a figure the hosts found surprisingly low given how frequently it occurs.
The hosts pushed back on the survey's methodology, with one arguing that the data is skewed by who was surveyed. "If you look at brokers and what they deal with, their biggest one is going to be double brokering," one host said, explaining why loss prevention professionals might rank it lower than brokers would. "You can't go to a bunch of loss professionals and say, hey, and ask them these questions because guess what you're going to get?"
The segment concluded with a blunt assessment: "There's nothing in this article that is of any value at all." When asked if that meant the data was skewed, the host clarified, "No, it's true data. There's nothing wrong with this data at all. It's the survey and the methodology that is completely bogus." The other host agreed, saying, "You're saying that the data is skewed, basically?" before the first replied, "Well, no, it's true data."
The exchange drew an analogy to awards shows, with one host saying, "It's like watching the Emmys or the Oscars. It's exactly, it's actors giving actors awards" -- a comment on what he described as loss prevention professionals affirming the importance of their own roles.
Back on the UVU review, the coverage described a university that cleared staff of bad faith while documenting a series of omissions. The review found no written security plan, no attendee screening, no real-time camera monitoring, and six officers working the event, according to the account @KanekoaTheGreat. That account also noted that Kirk "had his own security team" because he understood the risk.
The review's release drew reaction from across the conservative media ecosystem, with the Washington Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, PBS News, WRAL, and ABC4 all carrying the story within hours. The account @KanekoaTheGreat framed the findings as "BREAKING" and emphasized the absence of basic security measures.
It is not yet known whether the review will lead to policy changes at Utah Valley University or whether Turning Point USA will alter its procedures for outdoor events. The review itself, as described in the coverage, did not assign blame to any individual staff member and explicitly cleared university personnel of acting in bad faith.
Next News Network could not independently verify the findings of the review or the specific claims made in the social media posts and coverage cited in this article.
Our Take
The UVU review confirms what many conservatives suspected from the outset: Charlie Kirk was left exposed by a security posture so threadbare it defies belief. No written plan. No screening. No real-time cameras. Six officers for an outdoor event featuring one of the most visible conservative activists in America, a man who had already warned publicly that assassination culture was spreading on the left and who traveled with his own security team because he knew the threat was real. The report clears university staff of bad faith, and we accept that finding, but incompetence is not a defense. The question that hangs over this tragedy is why an institution entrusted with the safety of a speaker -- any speaker -- failed to take the most elementary precautions. The answer appears to be that nobody was made responsible for the obvious. Kirk's organization insisted on an outdoor venue to draw a crowd, and that decision placed him within reach of anyone with a rifle and a rooftop. If there is a lesson here, it is that security is not a formality and not a bureaucratic box to check. It is the difference between a speech and a funeral. Congress should examine whether public universities receiving federal funds are meeting even minimal standards for protecting controversial speakers on their campuses. If they are not, the money should stop.
