A former Utah Valley University police officer described the chaotic scene after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated on the school’s campus last year during a key preliminary hearing ahead of the murder trial over Kirk’s death.
Chris Bagley, a former UVU police officer who worked during the event where Kirk was killed, was the first witness called by state prosecutors to testify at the weeklong hearing to determine if there is probable cause for Tyler Robinson to go on trial for murder charges for the alleged killing of Kirk. Bagley said he saw Kirk slump over to his left after hearing a gunshot fired, with people in the crowd around the activist getting up and running in what he described as a “chaos kind of situation.”
“I thought I needed to start preserving the scene because we had a crime scene, and with some of my experience and training to that effect of, I decided now we need to contain the scene and help preserve as much evidence as we can. So I started pushing people off the grass out of the courtyard area because I knew that’s where the crime scene was,” Bagley said, adding that the gunshot sounded like a rifle rather than a handgun.
“Just from being around firearms through all my training. The difference is a handgun is more of a short bang-pop sound. With a rifle, you have it more of a longer violent bang or crackle sound. It’s more of a violent kind of sound. It’s longer. That’s why I recognize it,” he added.
Bagley then said he noticed the Losee building on campus had a “direct line of sight” to where Kirk had been speaking and decided to investigate the roof of the building. He said when he got to the roof of the building, the gravel appeared to have the markings of someone who had lain down and aimed a firearm at Kirk’s tent.
“I could see this disturbance of gravel. To me, it looks like a sniper pad, a person that has been laid in a prone position, and you’ve got markings of elbows, knees, and feet to where somebody was in the line of sight of where Charlie’s tent was,” Bagley said.
Robinson’s lawyers grilled Bagley on cross-examination over the school’s security protocols, which it put in place for Kirk’s event at the center of campus. Bagley said only six officers were assigned to cover the event, of the 15 officers the university employed at the time, along with Kirk’s private security, and that there was no briefing or preparation meeting ahead of the specific event.
Monday’s hearing was the first of an expected five days of hearings where witnesses will be called to testify and evidence will be presented, as the prosecution argues to Judge Tony Graf why Robinson should go to trial on murder charges for Kirk’s killing.
WEEKLONG HEARING BEGINS IN TYLER ROBINSON TRIAL WITH ERIKA KIRK EXPECTED TO BE IN ATTENDANCE
During the expected trial, Robinson will face multiple charges for his alleged assassination of Kirk on the UVU campus in September 2025. The maximum punishment for the charges against Robinson includes the death penalty, which prosecutors have said they intend to pursue. Robinson’s lawyers attempted to get the possibility of the death penalty off the table during a hearing last month, but Graf denied the motion.
Robinson’s trial is expected to be one of the most closely watched criminal cases of the year, after the public killing of Kirk sent shock waves through politics last year. Authorities say Robinson claimed Kirk spread “too much hate,” and that his family said Robinson espoused increasingly left-wing views, including on transgender ideology, in recent years.