During a recent episode of The Shawn Ryan Show, Harpole told Shawn Ryan that he and his team had raised concerns about rooftop exposure and drone restrictions in the days leading up to the fatal September 10 event at Utah Valley University.
Watch Below:
“We had concerns with rooftops. I mean, we got a location that we’re not keen with. We know what our responsibility is, we know what our statutory authority is, we know that we can’t go up and set up our guys in cyber observer positions,” Harpole explained.
According to Harpole, on September 8 — two days before Kirk’s assassination — the security chief reached out to the UVU Chief of Police, warning him of exposed rooftops to which students had access, he said.
Harpole shared a purported screenshot of his text correspondence with “Chief Long,” which read as follows:
Harpole: Hello, Chief Long – We received this message today from the student group. “There is student roof access pretty close to where CK will be set up at Utah Valley (the Sorensen Student center has a couple stair cases that go up to the walkways on the roof)”
Long: You want access to the roof?
Harpole: 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.
Long: 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’?” Harpole said, before revealing, “We’ve called him. He’s never called us back.”
“And why this hadn’t come out, and why he won’t stand up like a man and admit this, I don’t know,” the Integrity Security Solutions founder added. “But he’s watching a bunch of men lose their careers and he’s okay with it.”
While Harpole could not recall Long’s first name during the interview, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that he was referring to Utah Valley University (UVU) Police Chief Jeff Long.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Harpole said he had also raised concerns about drone restrictions.
“I spent thousands of dollars on drones last year and got the guys’ licenses, but if the area lies in the Provo, Utah airspace, I can’t fly it. That’s a 107B, we can’t break the rules,” he said.
Harpole also noted that the Orem Police Department “could have flown drones” and has a SWAT unit, but were never contacted by the UVU Police Department for assistance, despite having a mutual-aid agreement.
“The UVU [Police Department] has jurisdictional authority, it’s their campus. Orem [Police Department] is the outside city. They weren’t there, because they hadn’t been asked to come,” Harpole said.
“And we can’t ask them to come. I can’t call Orem PD and say, ‘Hey, man, send me ten guys.’ I don’t have the authority to do that,” he added.
“But the school PD has an MOU [memorandum of understanding] or mutual-aid agreement with them. Why not just call them say, ‘Hey, can you send us ten guys over here for overwatch?’” Harpole lamented.
The security chief added that he had “upped the manpower to twelve” at Utah Valley University on September 10.
“We usually would run eight to nine,” Harpole said. “We upped it based on nothing [no articulable threat], because it’s like, ‘All right, we’re in a kind of a place where we don’t want to be.’ We were expecting a big crowd.”
Watch the Full Interview Below:
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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