Newly revealed text messages are putting fresh heat on Utah Valley University’s police department after the rooftop shooting that killed conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.
On the Shawn Ryan Show, host Shawn Ryan sat down with Kirk’s head of security, Brian Harpole, who says he warned campus police about student roof access before the event – and was assured the risk was “covered.”
Gun-rights commentator Howard Gatch, who runs the Hegshot87 channel, picked up those same messages in his own analysis and argued they fundamentally change how people should look at the security failure that night.
Both men say the texts don’t prove a conspiracy.
But they do paint a picture of a serious risk that was known, flagged, and allegedly left unguarded.
Warning Sent Before the Shooting
On Shawn Ryan’s podcast, Brian Harpole explains that his team had direct contact with Utah Valley University Police Chief Jeff Long in the days leading up to the event.
Harpole says the concern came in from the student organizers first.
They told his team there was “student roof access pretty close” to where Charlie Kirk would be set up.
In the interview, Harpole reads from the message his team says was relayed to Chief Long.
He says the text noted that the Sorenson Center on campus “has a couple of staircases that go up to walkways on the roofs” near the event location.
According to Harpole, that’s not a small detail.
For anyone who works security, rooftop access with a clear line of sight to a stage is a giant red flag.
“I Got You Covered”: What the Texts Allegedly Say
Harpole tells Shawn Ryan that after the concern was raised, Chief Long responded with what sounded like a firm promise.
Harpole says he sent back another message:
He told Long, “I was told students have access above us. 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.”
According to Harpole, Chief Long’s final reply was short and reassuring:
“I got you covered.”
On the show, Ryan asks if they can put a screenshot of that text thread on the screen so people know it’s real.
Harpole says, “Yeah, absolutely,” and even urges people to file a public-records request for the chief’s phone to pull the messages themselves.
Harpole tells Ryan they have tried to reach Chief Long since the shooting.
“He’s never called us back,” Harpole says, describing the silence as deeply frustrating when men on his team are losing their careers over the fallout.
From a common-sense standpoint, if a police chief tells a private security lead “I got you covered” on a known vulnerability like that, most people would assume that means an officer will be physically posted on that access point.
Harpole’s point is simple: if a command-level cop says he’s got it, what else is private security supposed to do?
Security Team Says They Planned for Rooftop Threats
One theme Harpole drives home with Shawn Ryan is that his team did think about elevated threats.
He says they didn’t treat Kirk’s visit as a routine campus speech.
Harpole explains that his firm actually increased the normal staffing for this event.
He says they usually ran 8–9 operators, but for Utah Valley they brought 12 plus another security member arriving with the traveling party.
He tells Ryan that security is supposed to be a prevention industry first, not just a response industry.
That’s why they pushed extra manpower and did a detailed walkthrough of the area that morning.
During that walkthrough, Harpole says they discovered another hazard: a big elevated walkway above Kirk’s tent with large decorative rocks nearby.
He says those rocks could easily be picked up and thrown down at the tent.
To deal with that, Harpole says his team created a temporary “criminal trespass zone” on the bridge above Kirk and then asked UVU police to hold that area, because only police had the legal authority under Utah law to force people away from that taped-off section and arrest them if needed.
According to Harpole, one officer “did a hellacious job” holding that walkway during the event.
He uses that example to argue his team did its due diligence and tried to work with campus police on elevated threats whenever they had the jurisdiction to help.
Then, he says, you get back to the Sorenson roof – and that’s where the gap appears.
Howard Gatch: This Failure “Directly Cost” Kirk His Life
On his Hegshot87 channel, Howard Gatch tells his viewers the Harpole interview answered one of his biggest questions from day one: How did shooter Tyler Robinson get on that roof so easily?
Gatch says he has spent months debunking wilder conspiracy theories — exploding microphones, trap doors, second shooters, and other viral claims people pushed online.
Those theories, he says, mostly “fall completely flat.”
But this new detail doesn’t.
Gatch focuses on the text exchange that Harpole described with UVU Police Chief Long and calls it the missing piece of a real, concrete failure.
According to Gatch, the Sorenson roof wasn’t some movie-style sniper’s perch that required ladders and elaborate planning.
He points out that a local news crew later showed how simple the route was: walk up a staircase to a roof-level walkway, climb up onto an air-handling unit, and you’re there.
Gatch says that, in his opinion, once the chief of police replied “I got you covered” and then failed to post anyone at that access point, it became “an unintentional partnering crime.”
He stresses that he’s not accusing Long of wanting harm to come to Kirk – but he calls it a blatant and preventable failure.
He goes so far as to say that this breakdown “directly costed Charlie his life,” at least in his view.
Legally, that’s for courts and investigators to sort out, but Gatch is arguing from a moral and professional standpoint: when a known, obvious risk is identified and promised coverage never appears, it’s hard to call what happened “unforeseeable.”
Echoes of Butler and Questions About Motive
In his video, Howard Gatch also draws a straight line between the Kirk shooting and the attempted assassination at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a gunman fired from another unsecured rooftop.
Gatch argues that, after Butler, no police agency or security team can say they never thought about rooftop threats at political events.
That case, he says, put every department on notice.
Because of that context, he thinks the failure at Utah Valley can’t be brushed off as a freak oversight.
Someone knew about the roof. Someone texted the chief. The chief allegedly said it was “covered.” Then Kirk was shot from that exact kind of position.
Gatch then walks through possible reasons why the roof was left unguarded.
He floats staffing shortages as one possibility — something many departments are struggling with.
He also mentions another, more uncomfortable idea: bias.
In his view, university environments tend to skew left politically, and he wonders out loud whether there might have been less urgency around protecting a controversial conservative speaker like Charlie Kirk.
To be clear, Gatch repeatedly says he is not declaring that bias or malice were the cause.
He’s openly speculating and urging viewers to consider that human factors – politics, ego, or simple arrogance – can affect how seriously warnings are taken.
He also raises the issue of ego between private security and sworn police.
Sometimes, he suggests, seasoned officers don’t like being told what to do by a private team, even when that team has serious experience with high-threat events.
All of that, in his view, makes the text “I got you covered” even more important to investigate.
If the messages are authentic, they show that the risk was called out, acknowledged, and then apparently left wide open.
A Preventable Failure That Still Needs Answers
Both Shawn Ryan and Brian Harpole push the idea that the best way to get clarity is to pull the receipts.
On the show, Ryan quickly agrees with Harpole’s suggestion to file public-records requests for Chief Long’s phone and communications in the days before the shooting.
Harpole says the texts exist, and he’s comfortable with them being scrutinized.
He frames it as a simple step: “Do a FOIA… and have those records put out so everybody can see them.”
From a broader security perspective, the story they’re telling is chilling.
Harpole insists his team increased manpower, identified elevated threats, and leaned on local police where only police had legal authority.
Gatch, from his side, says the new information shifts much of the blame away from Kirk’s private security and onto Utah Valley University’s police leadership, at least when it comes to that rooftop.
He even speculates that, if the texts check out, the chief or others could face claims of gross negligence or civil liability for failing to act on a “known risk.”
At the same time, both men are clear on one point: this wasn’t some genius sniper who outsmarted everyone.
As Gatch puts it, Robinson “beat policy, potentially ideology,” not a perfect security system.
That might be the most disturbing part.
If what Harpole and Gatch are describing is accurate, then Charlie Kirk wasn’t killed by an unforeseeable threat in a chaotic world – he was killed in a scenario someone literally texted about days before, and that law enforcement allegedly promised to handle.
Now the question is whether those texts, once fully aired out in public, will finally force officials to answer for what was done – and what wasn’t – when the warnings were right in front of them.
A former park ranger and wildlife conservationist, Lisa’s passion for survival started with her deep connection to nature. Raised on a small farm in northern Wisconsin, she learned how to grow her own food, raise livestock, and live off the land. Lisa is our dedicated Second Amendment news writer and also focuses on homesteading, natural remedies, and survival strategies. Lisa aims to help others live more sustainably and prepare for the unexpected.
