Candace Owens analyzes Erika Kirk's wrongful death lawsuit filing against Utah Valley University
Candace Owens examines the Kirk family's notice of claim against UVU and raises questions about a 2022 body cam video of Tyler Robinson.
Summary
Candace Owens presents a solo episode examining the Kirk family's notice of claim — a prerequisite to a wrongful death lawsuit — filed against Utah Valley University, UVU Police Chief Jeffrey Long, and former UVU President Astrid Tuminez, among others, in connection with Charlie Kirk's death. Owens argues the filing is a preemptive PR strike timed to get ahead of an independent security review commissioned by UVU, which she says is due to be released imminently and will contain findings devastating to Turning Point USA's own security apparatus. She walks through the filing point by point, arguing that it omits a critical line from a key text message exchange, misrepresents the security arrangements, and effectively blames UVU for granting Turning Point USA's own demands. In the second segment, Owens raises questions about how body cam footage of Tyler Robinson from a routine 2022 fender bender — which she argues should have been automatically deleted under Utah law within 60 to 90 days — came to be held, stored, and released to Scripps News seven days after Robinson was named as a suspect.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Erika Kirk's wrongful death filing — Owens's opening argument
Candace Owens: Happy Wednesday, you guys. Some big news today. Turning Point USA just makes me sick. And I have to be honest with you. I just know so much of what goes on behind the scenes that when I wake up on a day like today and I see them running another PR game, trying to delude the public into thinking that they want justice for Charlie, it just makes me sick. And that's what they're doing today.
In case you missed it, there is basically wall-to-wall coverage regarding a pending wrongful death lawsuit that the Kirk family intends to file against the state of Utah, among others. And they have their typical orbit of influencers attempting to quickly spin this into a narrative that there's an aggrieved widow and her endless fight to find justice for her Charlie. You know how it goes. But your common sense should tell you that something isn't right. Why now? Why a notice to file a lawsuit a year on? And you're going to be extremely offended when I take you through the absurdity of the filing itself, which reads like more narcissistic abuse coming from the Turning Point USA clown show. So let's jump into this.
Why the timing of the filing is suspicious
I am always just amazed at the increasing shamelessness, the never-ending grift, the desperation to try to sell to the public that Erika really cares about justice — when in reality, what she has demonstrated thus far is that she cares deeply about raising money and deeply about her PR. She's willing to partner with just about anyone, no matter how gutter trash they are, in the pursuit of both.
So this morning I wake up and I see a trend on X that Charlie Kirk's family has filed a notice of claim against the state of Utah — also Utah Valley University Police Department, and more specifically UVU Police Chief Jeffrey Long and former president of UVU Astrid Tuminez, and others that are presently, quote, "presently unknown," who were involved in the death of Charlie Kirk. I don't know how they would be presently unknown, but okay, stick with me.
To first explain to you why they would file a notice of a claim rather than just filing a claim itself — that's really just because of the law on the books. It's a mandatory prerequisite for this kind of a lawsuit that you first have to assert your intent to sue the government, so that the government has a chance to simply concede and maybe settle it in the background, thus not wasting any unnecessary state resources with a prolonged legal process. They might just concede and say, "Here's a check. Let's settle. We don't need to do this in the courtroom." Okay.
But you're also probably wondering why now. It's been over a year. I'm wondering too, because foremost I have known since approximately last December that it was actually Charlie Kirk's parents who were encouraging Erika to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the state of Utah. And at that time I was told that it was not something that Erika herself was keen to do. Now, I did not report on it because I tend to stay away from reporting on anything involving Charlie Kirk's parents, because they're not public figures. They never have aspired to be public figures. They did not usurp Charlie's very public position as the CEO and chairman of an organization that pulled in a quarter billion last year, and therefore opened themselves up to fair criticism. But now that fact is extremely relevant to present to the public — that this was Charlie Kirk's parents who wanted Erika to do this. And I'm wondering: why did Erika decide now to file that intent to sue? And why does it look rushed? Why didn't she express a desire to do something like that more immediately, if it's been this much time that it's been discussed? And it certainly has been discussed for a long time now.
Now, we can only surmise, of course. But curiously, I was also informed this week that what is due to be released imminently to the public is the long-awaited independent review regarding the security failures at UVU, which may have contributed to Charlie's death. Now, it was UVU themselves who commissioned this independent review back in September of last year. I want you to check out this article, jogging your memory here. It was published in the Associated Press on September 22nd, 2025 — so this is 12 days after Charlie lost his life — and it tells us: "Utah Valley University is launching an independent external review of the fatal shooting of prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk on its campus earlier this month. The university announced the move Monday in an effort to improve safety practices amid fallout over security lapses and the shattering of the serene image that the institution had cultivated."
The school's president said in an emailed statement: "We believe the findings of the comprehensive third-party independent review of this targeted act of violence will offer valuable insights on how college campuses improve response and preparedness moving forward. We will integrate the findings into our efforts to strengthen and improve safety practices for UVU and all of Utah higher education."
So just 12 days after Charlie is hit, the university sought to examine all of those failures — some of which were immediately noted, and some of which were eventually noted by the larger public. At long last, that report is due to be released. I was told that its findings were going to be released on Friday. I don't know if that's now going to be bumped. And I was told that the findings were actually going to be devastating to Turning Point USA — to their security apparatus — because obviously they would have been gathering communications. Why didn't this happen? Why didn't that happen?
So when I look at that — I had this information, I was expecting this independent review to be released on Friday — and suddenly we're hit on Wednesday with an intent to sue that is sloppy. That feels a little too on the nose. It's remarkably timely, to say the least. Two days before the review gets released, suddenly Turning Point USA is drumming up noise and influencers are blaming the campus for the security failures. Classic preemptive PR strike, in my view.
Walking through the filing — the security team's qualifications
But what is perhaps even more shocking is actually how lackluster the filing itself is. Again, it feels very rushed, especially when you've had a full year to file this — a full year to pull this together and make it look, I don't know, like you might have some reasonable claims.
Now, remember, Charlie had a total of 12 security members that he brought with him. Twelve security members. That's massive for a college event. I've never seen this in the history of me doing college campuses with Charlie — that 12 security people would have been brought with him for a campus of this size. And these are not police officers. These are highly trained military: former Navy SEALs, former Marines, Army snipers, SWAT commanders who worked for the highest levels of government.
Actually, I'm going to show you this clip, because when Brian Harpole sat down with Shawn Ryan, Shawn Ryan went over the remarkable expertise of this security team. Take a listen.
Shawn Ryan: We have some statements from your guys here, and I don't know if you want me to read any names, but I will — they said they're fine with just first names. I mean, here's just — Blake, combat-proven Marine, appears more talented than everyone else. I mean, you have SEALs, world-renowned jiu-jitsu people, 22 years on SWAT, professional athletes with tactical careers. 22 years as a Navy SEAL, Marine and 30-year cop and SWAT commander. I mean, these guys know what they're doing, and they're no stranger to dangerous work.
Candace Owens: So Brian is submitting that to Shawn Ryan to tell the world just how overqualified his team was going to this campus event. Look at their background. Look at their qualifications. Twenty-year Marine. What are you talking about? This is nothing to these people.
And I want you guys to know something. This level of security is extremely expensive. Extremely expensive. You contract that level of security because you are recognizing that the publicly available security apparatus is going to be inefficient. They're brought in to assess and to eradicate any threats in advance. In essence, you're bringing in these experts that are assumed to be above the pay grade and expertise of a college campus cop.
And to be clear, I'm not guessing here. I worked for Turning Point USA. On every tour that I went on thereafter, I brought in my own security team to each and every event. I know how this works. Your security — if you're going to bring them in — would be liaising with the local police force and telling them what you want and what you need. So you might say, as I did at a recent event, "We want bomb dogs." You might say, as they talked about in this interview, "We want drones. We're going to need a guy up on the rooftop. We've assessed the situation. We want guys up there." And then the local police will come back at you with potential limitations. They may say, "We're not able to meet some of your requests because of this, because of that." Which means that you then either need to go source that independently — go source your own bomb dogs, source your own drones — or you're going to say, "We're not going to do this event because it's not secure enough."
That's why you're bringing in experts: to say we can't make this secure, we're prevented from making it secure, so we advise you not to do this. Especially if you send a message the night before saying, "I think I'm going to be killed." You pull the event. You pull the event if you say that we cannot secure the premises.
Now, I'd also like to stress that you send your highly trained and expensive security team — who are 20-year Marines — days in advance of the event, minimally. Minimally, you would send them days ahead to make preparations. They're not going to come in blind and never have seen this campus. If Donald Trump decides that he wants to speak at UVU, that doesn't suddenly mean that UVU has the means to provide everything that someone at that level is going to need. That's what his Secret Service detail is for. They're going to go there, they're going to get their bearings, they're going to make assessments, they're going to make sure that the perimeter is secured. That is the entire point of having an outside security apparatus. Just laying the groundwork there.
Point-by-point analysis of the filing
Let's now go through some of the highlights — and by highlights, I mean low lights — of this filing. It's a short one. It's eight pages. It's just meant to be a notice, like I said. And we're going to skip through the preamble where they tell us who Charlie Kirk was, because we already know who Charlie Kirk was. We're instead going to begin with Section B on page three, which is entitled "UVU Charlie Kirk Event."
So they tell us that in 2025, Turning Point USA planned its largest-ever campus tour. That immediately caught my eye, just that opening right there, because they're careful not to give a precise date. Now, you may remember that there was a young woman who back in September, October, and November of last year was making noise, telling the public that this event came together too quickly. Someone who has toured and gave you examples that normally five months in advance they begin planning these events — and that's for a lot of reasons. I worked as a speaker with this organization. I've never seen an event planned like this. This one came together in a couple of weeks. I said, "The fact that they even got approval for this event is crazy." Usually there's a long waiting list of all the universities who want to host Charlie, want to host Candace, want to host him for the campus tour. They make that request the semester ahead and then we assess and look through and see how many of these we can hit. Remarkably, this one came together in weeks. And I said, "This is weird. This is wrong. This is not how it works." Because usually the administration gives Turning Point USA a hard time. There's so many things they're going to say you need — insurance, ambulances, this, that, blah blah blah. So they need that long runway to prep for these events. But this one was granted immediately. We don't know who filed for it. And suddenly in a couple of weeks, they're promoting this.
Now, despite this, they assert that they pulled together this event. But they want to let you know — and this feels rather narcissistic — because the whole reason that Charlie started Turning Point USA was because there were not conservative ideas expressed on college campuses. And they knew that there was never a warm welcome. There's never a warm welcome. You go to these events to share ideas that you don't typically find on liberal campuses. Yet they write here: "Through advocacy by the local chapter of Turning Point USA on UVU's campus, Utah Valley University had the distinct honor of being the first stop on the fall tour." And that honor came against a well-known backdrop of risk. "We pulled together this event. We picked you and you were given a distinct honor that we picked you." That's a lot of hubris coming from this filing.
Now, then it comes and they tell us what all these risks are. They're like, "Well, didn't you know that President Trump — there was a rooftop sniper? You should have known and assessed that we were coming and that this could be a possibility. Don't you know that Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's husband was brutally attacked in their California home? Once we announced and awarded you this distinct honor to host us, you should have immediately gone, 'Oh my, Nancy Pelosi's husband was in his trunks and somebody came into the house.'" Okay.
Page four is where they begin spelling out the negligence that they are claiming took place here. And we're going to go through this point by point because I'm amazed by it.
Point one: they say that UVU police did not conduct a meaningful risk assessment, and UVU parties did not have a security briefing where the risks associated with unsecured rooftops — which they're going to talk about more later — which had been identified and communicated to Chief Long, could be communicated to other officers. Here's my question: you know, some of that expertise you were paying for — did Charlie's team request this security brief? Is UVU required by law to have a written security plan submitted? If so, why didn't Charlie's extensive security team note that it had not been submitted? What is he paying you for?
Clause two — and I think this is among the craziest clauses of all, they're all crazy, but clause two is pretty crazy. They then move to blame UVU for granting their request. And to be clear, it was not a request. It was a demand. It was a demand, I am told, that was made on August 25th, 2025 for Charlie to be in this amphitheater. On August 25th, 2025, they had a Microsoft Teams meeting. This was an events committee meeting on Turning Point's side. It was led by Macy Crofts, their employee. And on that call, I am told Macy Crofts insisted that the event take place in the amphitheater. So you have UVU on the call and they say, "No, you shouldn't do it in the amphitheater because there's no traffic control." Another point that I said to you was very strange — why would you bother having tickets sold if there's no traffic control? That means you don't have to have a ticket. You can just walk up and sit down. And they made it clear that they could not shut down the amphitheater. That was not something the university could do.
Macy insisted that they wanted the amphitheater. They didn't care about that, because Charlie had recently done an event in Tennessee in March of 2025 where he loved the amphitheater and now he just wanted the amphitheater so bad. So: "Shouldn't we do it inside?" "No, no, no, no, no. Charlie loves the amphitheater. It must be in the amphitheater." So Turning Point USA made that demand and the university acquiesced to that demand. And now Turning Point USA is saying, "We are going to sue you for not telling us no." They're not even arguing the point. They're not suggesting they didn't request it. They're saying, "You gave us what we wanted. And that, my friend, is your fault." This just feels like narcissistic abuse.
Now, they made it clear that they went into this knowing that there would be no traffic control. Like I said, I don't even know why you would even have a ticketed event at that point if anyone can just freely walk up. And if they're going to insist upon that, and then later cop to the fact that Charlie notified his security team the night before that he was worried that he was going to be killed — why didn't they just cancel this event? Also, why didn't Charlie's security, even if you said he really wants to be outside, why didn't they show up before 9:00 a.m. the morning of September 10th? Because that's when they showed up. That's when they first hit the ground — at 9:00 a.m. the morning of the event, a couple of hours before Charlie arrived. Leading up to that moment, the police were mostly in communication with the TPUSA club — a little bit of back-and-forth texting, which we're going to get to — but the TPUSA club is managing everything until 9:00 a.m. that morning. All of that just feels very wrong to me. And yet they're going to say that it's the university's fault.
Moving on to paragraph three, which is on page five. This is when they are going to complain that they were only provided with 25% of UVU's police force. So you can see it says: "Assigning only six campus police officers to an outdoor event with thousands of attendees despite requests for additional officers." And they say that the UVU parties assigned only six police officers to the outdoor tour event that ultimately attracted approximately 3,000 attendees. On information and belief, Chief Jeff Long requested approval from then-UVU president Astrid Tuminez to allocate more than six officers, which represented only 25% of the UVU police force. But this request was denied.
Now, I don't like to be out here doing math. It's not my go-to. But I did some. And I think that when you do the math on this, what Astrid Tuminez did was the right thing — to deny the request. Because on a purely mathematical basis, they were oversupplied with police officers. Let me walk you through that. They say there are 3,000 attendees at this event. The campus itself — UVU — has a total of 50,000 students, and a grand total of just 24 UVU police officers available to cover those 50,000 students. The job of the UVU police force is to make sure the campus is covered, to make sure the students are safe. They do not suddenly become employees of Turning Point USA because they're doing what, relative to the entire university, is a minor event. Three thousand versus 50,000 students that occupy this campus every day. This is in the middle of the day. This is not a nighttime event where it's like, oh, all we've got is this event going on. This is the middle of the day while classes are happening.
So worked out as an equation: six police officers would have covered 12,500 students based on their availability of their full police force. They oversupplied. They have the capacity essentially for one police officer to cover a little over 2,000 students. So Charlie's event was oversupplied within their capabilities on a purely mathematical basis. That would be why Astrid Tuminez denied their request for more — because it would have put the additional 47,000 other students at risk. If something happened to them and there were no police in sight because everyone was being given to the Charlie Kirk event, the university could have been sued. That's the reality. You have to make that decision as a president. You go, "Okay, I understand you guys think you're a very big deal. You brought in your own security. We told you what we had. We have other students here who are not attending this event." The overwhelming majority of this college campus is not attending your event. And by the way, based on the crowd that we saw, those weren't even students at the event. There were so many adults. Something else that I pointed out — why are there so many adults at this event? It was absolutely bizarre to me.
Now, I also want to draw your attention to the end of point three, where they discuss that there were no first responders made available — because that's just not true. There were actually first responders that were made available. They followed Charlie to the car and then did not get into the car for some reason. Certainly did not seem like security was trying to have him treated by these first responders. And who were they? They were UVU's state-certified emergency medical services. They were right beside the car with medical bags in hand, and Charlie's team chose to get into the vehicle and to move on rather than to have him treated and stabilized right there, or to find a place that they felt was safe to have him stabilized. Whether or not that was a good decision by the security is something that's up for debate. But what is not up for debate is that first responders were actually on the scene.
The filing is correct, though, in that bottom part when it says that Mr. Kirk was transported to Panguitch Regional Hospital in a private vehicle, not an ambulance. Yeah, there was no ambulance on standby. And I would like to know why. I have been trying to figure out why. I am positively shocked by this, because at every single event that I have done with Turning Point USA, there was an ambulance on standby. We typically walked past the ambulance — wherever the security pulled up, you would pass by the ambulance because their security cars would be right next to the ambulance. And I also want to tell you that TPUSA distributed the security protocols to speakers. So we were aware of what the most local hospital was, the shortest-distance hospital, its address, the security protocols, ambulance on standby. They made us aware of that. Suddenly now they're saying, "Well, UVU didn't do it." Like they're just totally rinsing their hands of something that I know they've always done.
The Dan Flood text message — what the filing omits
Paragraph four is more of "you didn't tell us no." You didn't tell us no. We did it and now we're angry at you. You gave us what we asked for. Now they are citing, for instance, that the UVU parties could have created and maintained a secure perimeter around the event by constructing physical barriers with limited points of ingress and egress where the number of attendees could be controlled and where security screenings could take place. That runs contrary to what Macy Crofts was told on the call — the Microsoft Teams call — when they told you, "We cannot do traffic control if you do this in the amphitheater." Allegedly. They were very clear on that. If you decide to do this outside, there cannot be any traffic control.
They also say, "Well, they could have placed restrictions on the number of attendees." Who controlled the tickets, guys? Turning Point USA. Turning Point USA are the ones that controlled the tickets. So they're saying, "We sold a number of tickets that we wanted, and you let us do that." The UVU parties — not Turning Point USA — had the power and authority to block us from doing what we wanted to do. This is all just so stunning to me.
Now, let's move on to paragraph five. Maybe this is the one that's most egregious, for two reasons. The context here, just so you know, is they are now addressing the text message exchange between Dan Flood and Chief Jeffrey Long of the UVU police force. This is the same message that Brian Harpole misrepresented as his own on Shawn Ryan — like, "What am I supposed to do with that?" What do you mean, what are you supposed to do with that, Brian? You never received this message. There's nothing you're supposed to do with anything, because you're not on this thread. It's between Dan Flood and the chief of police.
Now, in this filing, the lawyers are going to further misrepresent this text message — shockingly — by omitting the most crucial part of the text message, which provides context, because they sort of want to pretend that this was a more general conversation about rooftops, plural. They say "rooftops" and not a very specific area that was above Charlie's head. That is the proper context.
So I'm going to show you the original text message to jog your memory so you can see how they just sort of edited out a sentence. This is the original text message from Dan Flood. He says: "Hello, Chief Long. We received this message today from the student group." And then he quotes it. Apparently the student group is saying to them: "There is student roof access pretty close to where CK will be set up at Utah Valley. The Sorenson Student Center has a couple of staircases that go up to the walkways on the roof." Okay. Jeff Long comes back: "You want access to that roof?" And Dan Flood says: "I was told students have access above us." That's crucial. "I was told students have access above us. If this is true, it would be nice to either have controlled access or allow one of my guys to be there as well if possible." It's an either-or. "Please — we would like some traffic control, or we would like to have one of our guys up there if possible." To which Chief Long says: "I got you covered."
So we broke a story back in November following Brian Harpole's appearance on Shawn Ryan that this message thread is specifically referring to — as it sounds — the walkway above Charlie's head, and the student access to that walkway, which students would have been able to just walk up the stairs. This is why that crucial line from the message — "I was told students have access above us" — matters. I'm going to show you a map so there's no confusion about what they were talking about. That's the staircase that leads up to that walkway — the roof access right there. You obviously know where Charlie was sitting. They're now concerned that students are going to be able to walk from what is really the lower level of Sorenson up that staircase and over Charlie's head. That's the context they're talking about in this message. They were worried about that because people could throw things down if they wanted to — you could have an incident where someone's throwing water bottles, throwing water on Charlie. They want to prevent that from happening and secure that roof access. It's the roof of the Hall of Flags. The Hall of Flags is what Charlie is sitting beneath. That's the roof access.
Amazingly, in this filing, Kirk family lawyers decided to just omit that critical line of the text exchange altogether. We can look at this side by side. They jump in at "if this is true, it would be nice to either have controlled access or allow one of my guys to be up there as well" — but they're missing the part that says "I was told students have access above us." Because if you could see that in the filing, you would go, "Oh, kind of sounds like you're talking about a very specific area that has nothing to do with the Loy Center or any other rooftop, but rather an area right above you guys" — meaning right above Brian Harpole. So I guess they're just going to ride that lie until the wheels fall off, pretending that this exchange was about rooftops more broadly speaking, and not about that one particular access point.
Which, by the way, they dealt with — in that same clause, on the bottom of page six. The lawyers here are hitting peak insanity, because they note that Chief Long responded with three words: "Got you covered." Because, well, he did have them covered. They did both — the either and the or. Officer Baggley was sent to monitor the rooftop traffic control. Remember Officer Baggley — his body cam went off. He's up there doing traffic control. And additionally, members of Charlie's security team were allowed up there as well. He met both of Dan Flood's demands. Here's a still of Richard Bracey — he was up there. We know Richard Bracey was up there on the rooftop. And you can actually see right after the explosive goes off, Richard Bracey juts across. He was already up there, given access.
Yet this filing suggests that "got you covered" was not met. And then they try to extrapolate it. They say — and this is amazing — at the bottom of page six: "This led TPUSA to reasonably conclude that UVU had a plan to address the identified risk and other similar risks, most obviously the risk from other rooftops, without TPUSA involvement. Chief Long's text message did not invite or even allow Turning Point USA to take any steps to secure the risk of unsecured rooftops."
I'm sorry. What? Was this filing written by a teenage girl reading between the lines of her boyfriend's silence via text? What are you talking about? He addressed the exact concern that you brought up. You confirmed what you were speaking about. They made sure that you got both the either and the or — Officer Baggley, your own guys are up there. And now you're like, "And then just like when he said 'got you covered,' even though he did cover us, we then assumed that he would then address every rooftop on campus. We just assumed that. We only have like 20 years of Marine experience, sniper experience. We think we're supposed to be thinking about rooftops generally speaking, but we just took these three words in the context of getting exactly what we wanted and we just assumed that you would have us covered everywhere above and beyond." That is so beyond ridiculous and unacceptable. I can't even believe they are attempting this.
The filing's conclusion — and Owens's overall assessment
Now, the next sentences on page seven — we can jump down to paragraph six. This is really just a summation of this brief filing and I'm just going to read that in its entirety. It says: "The UVU parties' omissions, actions, and misconduct led to Mr. Kirk's death. All of these failures placed Mr. Kirk in danger. He was legally entitled to believe that when the UVU parties approved the tour event to be held on campus on September 10th, that the UVU parties would only hold the event in a venue and with associated security measures that made the event safe for him to attend and participate in. Instead, Mr. Kirk was exposed to the danger of a rooftop shooter that took his life, in light of the risks known to the UVU parties. The UVU parties' failures shock the conscience, giving rise both to a state-created danger claim under the United States Constitution's due process clause and a traditional wrongful death claim under Utah law. Thank you for receiving the above notice of claim. Please feel free to reach out if you have questions. Very truly yours."
I have questions. I would like to reach out. I do not think my call will be taken. But I have a lot of questions. What are we doing here? What have we learned from this? We learned that Turning Point USA's position is: we brought in all of these former military-trained snipers and Navy SEALs, but we are really shocked — our conscience is shocked — that we were expected to in any way utilize their expertise. That's really what this says. They're just totally shocked.
It's amazing to me that they're not suing their own security, who showed up at 9:00 a.m. that morning, and are now trying to strenuously read between the lines of a text message to assert that they somehow had a discussion about rooftops when they didn't.
So what's actually up with this filing? What is it really about? Well, I maintain my position that this is a preemptive PR strike meant to distract the public from what I am told is going to be a devastating blow — a devastating PR blow — regarding Turning Point USA's shortcomings. Maybe we get some answers to the questions of why there was no ambulance on standby. And maybe we're going to be able to see those communications — fuller communications with the team. And it's going to feel like — just to give it an ode to when you first see Blake Lively's filing and it sounds shocking, right? Because she races to file it, and then you kind of wait and Brian Freedman drops a lot of receipts and you go, "Oh my, actually we did not get the full story here." That's the vibe I'm getting.
The other thing that I think is interesting to consider is that we may actually be looking at unique insight into what Erika and Turning Point USA have communicated to Charlie's parents — that it wasn't their fault, that UVU made tons of mistakes. Like, they're obviously going to read through this, and this might be what they've been telling them. Like, "We requested this, we were told no, we were told this, we were told that. He said he had the rooftops covered." This might be what they were told. Who knows?
Lastly, I'd like to just say this. I do think it's possible that they will score a big payday — that the state will just want the situation to go away. Utah, to me, seems a little corrupt. And I would just imagine more broadly speaking that they're just going to want the situation to go away, agree to a settlement of some description, because they have the funds to do so and they have bigger concerns like the criminal case. I wouldn't rule that out. Even on a university level, you just want to be done with these things. I hope not. I certainly hope they don't do that. And I'm going to instead hold my breath for the independent review that's being conducted.
The 2022 Tyler Robinson body cam footage — who stored it and why?
I have a random bee in my bonnet today. I need your help, internet. It's bothering me tremendously. I can't let it go. Credit to YouTuber Zack Costello for putting this bee in my bonnet, even though he didn't mean to. Basically what happened was he was looking at the footage of Tyler Robinson — the version in the American shirt — walking onto UVU campus, and he was addressing how he had his fingers in his pockets and the particular way that he was holding his fingers in his pockets. And in Zack Costello's mind, he said, "That's super interesting because that makes me think of that 2022 arrest of Tyler Robinson — he also had his fingers in his pocket that way." But of course, my crazy brain, instead of hearing what Zack Costello is saying — which is like, this could be Tyler Robinson — I went, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. Why the heck did we ever see that footage?"
This is — let me back this up for you. The footage itself is now exceedingly problematic. Some facts about this footage. It's 2022 footage of Tyler Robinson, and then the police. It was body cam footage — you'll recall it, we'll show you a bit of it. It was released just seven days after the public found out that Tyler Robinson was the suspect. Again, it's body cam footage dated May 31st, 2022. So we're talking like three and a half years after it was recorded, and it was released by Scripps Media.
Now, I'm going to explain to you what suddenly registered to me as very wrong about that footage — the fact that it's three and a half years old and yet was released and available to be released to the public so instantly — because the footage should not exist.
Now, you may not know this, but allow me to enlighten you. The police do not just hold on to every mundane piece of footage from traffic stops, maybe 911 calls, and police interactions that they have on a daily basis, mostly because they can't. That's just way too much data. So, state by state, there exist laws that govern when body cam footage is to be automatically deleted. And it's typically a very short time frame for non-criminal interactions, as it should be. Because do you know how many traffic stop footage there would be from me between the ages of 18 and 21 years old if they didn't just automatically delete this? I had so many speeding tickets across so many states that Connecticut actually made me go back to driving school for a weekend or else I was going to lose my license. Gratefully there's no footage of me getting stopped for speeding by police officers, because it falls under a category that's termed routine footage. A teenager being an idiot and not abiding by speed laws is routine. So are fender benders.
In Utah, I looked up the law. That body cam duration for routine footage that does not involve either an arrest, a citation, a use of force, or a citizen complaint is usually and typically automatically purged from their system between 60 and 90 days. Again, that is to manage storage costs. Sixty to 90 days.
So in the case of Tyler Robinson in 2022, no citations were issued. Nobody was arrested. The body cam footage did not capture the accident. So there's no reason to hold on to it. What took place was that Tyler Robinson spoke to an officer and was handed a report number, an incident report number. Both drivers were made to exchange insurance. That's very typical. There was no ambulance, no paramedics, nobody was pretending to be hurt. This was beyond routine. So I found myself going: who ordered the footage and held on to it for three years? That is the question.
When there is not a dispute — this is not going into the court system, you're not saying this happened and I'm disputing it — Tyler Robinson was completely unknown in 2022. He was just 19 years old. This recording was recorded by an officer in the St. George Police Department. You should also know that fact. And there would have been no need to request the footage. By the way, even if you do request the footage, they won't just grant it to you automatically. You can say, "I am requesting this footage. I know Tyler Robinson and I know that he was involved in a fender bender. I'd like to see that before you throw it out in 90 days." Who would do that? Like I said, both drivers were cooperative. There was no subsequent lawsuit or fight. Why, and who collected and stored this footage?
And we can now watch a little clip of it, just so you can see what we're referring to, because I don't think we actually ever talked about it on this show.
Officer: Who's the driver? The driver.
Tyler Robinson: Yeah.
Officer: Can you tell me just really quick what happened?
Tyler Robinson: I was coming this way and he's just passing through and he pulled out from here — or no, from there, I think.
Officer: Which lane do you remember being in?
Tyler Robinson: I was in one of those two lanes going this way. I think in the right — yeah, in the rightmost lane coming this way. And he would have been there going left. And as I was coming through, he turned in and I T-boned into the side.
Officer: Okay.
Candace Owens: Mundane. I'm going to keep asking this: who requested and stored this footage for three years and then submitted it to Scripps News? Who in Utah was like, "I happen to have this footage from 2022 that I've been holding on to of this random, unknown 19-year-old Tyler Robinson, and I'm choosing to release it to a publication that no one has ever heard of"?
Here's the headline just so you guys can see. Scripps News obtains video of accused Charlie Kirk shooter after 2022 car crash. Now, we did some digging. Scripps News became a thing that same year, in 2022 — formerly Newsy, then became Scripps. The founder of Scripps News is a man named Jim Spencer. And it caught my eye that he happens to teach digital media and journalism at UT Austin. He's done so since 2018. He's been at UT Austin teaching digital media and journalism.
And that caught my eye — or at least jogged my memory — because I remembered that Turning Point USA has a very strong tie to UT Austin in the form of their number one donor, Nell Buckman. That was announced — "She's our number one donor." I believe they were sharing a plane with her as well at some point. She donated in 2022 a 2,300-square-foot building to UT Austin for mixed media and artists. It's called the Buckman Center of UT Austin. And that made me think: hey, that's another little side quest that Turning Point USA could use their resources to explore, that has nothing to do with the hearing at all. So you can't say, "Oh, we're just letting things play out, it's not really relevant to what's going on in the courtroom." Maybe Nell Buckman can help you reach out to Jim Spencer. Help us all figure out how they got a hold of this obscure video. Why it was submitted to them at Scripps News could be another piece of the puzzle.
Because you want to know what I think? I think this is like the maroon shirts. When I suddenly said every news organization was showing us pictures of Tyler in a maroon shirt — and you would think that he always wore maroon shirts, but he didn't actually. He normally wore blue shirts. And it seems like they knew that some decoys were going to wear the maroon shirt, and they wanted to immediately imprint upon the public's mind that Tyler just wore maroon every day. He didn't. I think this is similar. I think that they already knew they were going to release this to the public, and they had trained this individual to mimic the way in which Tyler Robinson walks.
I think that because the New York Post kind of said that, right? When they released the footage, they were basically like, "Wow, shocking footage emerges of Tyler Robinson, and he's wearing an eerily similar hat and sunglasses from the 2022 footage." The suspect better in Utah sporting sunglasses and a hat that are eerily similar to what he was seen wearing while on the run after allegedly gunning down conservative activist Charlie Kirk three years later. Wow, how crazy that this footage emerged and he's in the same hat and sunglasses — imprinting upon the public mind that this is our guy. That's my thought.
I would like to know why footage that did not involve a crime was available on the ready — seven days after we learned that Tyler Robinson was a suspect — and how Scripps got that. If you have information as to how that took place, who held on to that footage, why they held on to that footage — which should have been deleted after 60 days in the state of Utah, which no one should have requested because no one should have known that it happened — please reach out to us. More tips at candaceowens.com. Or you can email us at tips@candaceowens.com. Maybe you work for Scripps. Maybe you know how they got this footage. Maybe you work for St. George. You know who works for St. George and could have maybe held on to this footage. Maybe it's a whole thing where they highlight certain people. Maybe Mike Mitchell — wasn't he his mentor? Would he have maybe opened up to someone and said, "Hey, I just got pulled over"? I don't know. It's weird. It's all very weird.
Viewer comments and announcements
I see a lot of people in the chat saying that this feels like money laundering — like state money laundering away from the taxpayer. It's an interesting thought. I think there's a lot going on. I mean, I certainly would be frustrated, if I was a taxpayer in Utah, by the idea that Turning Point USA — Erika — was willing to promote her own security apparatus for what on that day? Dan Flood was actually providing security to her in the immediate aftermath. He certainly was on her at the White House when Charlie — I think it was Charlie's birthday or Trump did something there. And yet they're now turning around and being like, "There were security failures, but they were only the fault of UVU." I don't know that I buy that, actually.
Anyway, moving on from that. Top comments from yesterday's episode — this is regarding the Ed Sheeran scandal. It is a scandal indeed. Rohan writes: "Had they just ignored what McLemore said, he would have only had 90,000 people hear his message, but now the whole world has heard his message. The Lord works in mysterious ways." That's exactly right. They can never leave well enough alone. The pro-Israel lobby — they just operate like termites. They have to destroy. And typically what happens is the opposite desired effect, where people look and go, "Well, this is weird. This is very weird. Why are you punishing a person for saying something that's basically true? Genocide is always wrong in my view. What's going on here?" And so it is ultimately a good thing. And it remains to be seen what Ed Sheeran will do. He should cancel the rest of his tour, according to me.
This next user writes: "Acknowledging human suffering should not be a punishable offense." Well, you can't make that make sense to people who worship Baal. That's what I've learned. They just like human sacrifice. They love this blood lust. They love killing children. They laugh. They feel warm in their bellies when children die. So that's how that works.
Comments from today's episode. "Too Much Sausage" writes — what a username, how do you guys come up with this stuff — writes: "And yet Charlie's security team had one job. Did any of them get sued or fired? No. Some even got promoted." No, I'm the one being sued for calling out their security failures. This is just a crazy world we live in. Turning Point USA — or rather Erika Kirk — could go after UVU for security failures. God forbid Candace says something that is so abundantly obvious and true. It takes two to tango, my friends. When you bring 13 well-equipped security men with you with extensive military backgrounds, everybody's got to sue Candace. You know, it's like that show Everybody Hates Chris — Everybody Sues Candace.
"Neimus Out" writes: "Candace is divine providence in action. P.S. John Mappin is a proper legend, a top bloke, and an absolute diamond. He is the sort of chap who would help you move a sofa without expecting a pint of Stella after. Sovereignty is ours. Let's keep it." He will very much enjoy you having said that. He is quintessential Englishman — that's what I would say about John Mappin without question. And it's just really all very interesting how we met, and none of us actually should have met, and how it all came together. Him and Arena have just been fantastic friends to us, especially throughout this time. They have been extremely loyal to Charlie and making sure that he does not die in vain — that we actually explore what really happened, who was behind it. And we all know that this is so much bigger than we could have ever imagined.
"Scotty Thrive Tribe" writes: "The Step Brothers scene where they build bunk beds will not leave my brain. 'Mom, dad, why would you let us do this? There's so much blood.' Classic childish shirking of responsibility." Yes. I think you're talking about the "Did we just become best friends?" scene. I've actually never seen Step Brothers in full, which is weird because I'm a massive Will Ferrell fan. But yeah, like they do something and then they're like, "Why would you let us do this?" It's so crazy. That's so absolutely crazy to me. Like ordering a dish for your child at a restaurant — they give you the dish and then the child has some sort of choking incident. You're like, "Why would you let us order this?" What do you mean, why would you let us order? You ordered this. This is what you wanted. Turning Point USA: "Why are you telling us that we're getting sued for giving you what you want?" It's so bratty. It's giving Veruca Salt, right? "Don't care how, I want it now." That's the vibe I'm getting from this filing, which was delivered to the office of the attorney general of Utah.
"Margaret Garro" writes: "I'll say the selfish comment that we are all thinking. Bless the beautiful new baby that is about to become a part of your family, but we are going to miss you while you're being a great new mama. Someone had to say it." Thank you so much. You guys are very sweet. I do think that you will be happy with who is taking over my show in the interim — and this is actually a very good time to announce it. I delayed announcing it because he made a very unfortunate mistake and it was disgusting and it was sick and it had to be called out privately, and I almost just ripped up all the contracts because he said a hot dog qualified as a sandwich. It's crazy. But Baron Coleman, yes, will be taking over the principal show while I'm on maternity leave. We're very excited about this.
Obviously, Baron has just become such a great friend over this last year. Just an unexpected friendship that emerged. And just to be able to have someone who thinks through these things like I do — he takes his time, he has a method that very much matches my own in making sure that you want to triple-confirm. He's deep on this stuff. And obviously it's an added benefit that he is a lawyer. I'm a pretend lawyer. I love reading through documents, marking them up. I feel like I should get an honorary law degree. I'm not going to actually pursue that, but if anyone wants to give me one, I will accept it. Hey, if Erika can be a doctor, why can't I be a lawyer?
Baron Coleman will do fantastic on this show. It will run while I am off air Monday through Wednesday. Before I leave, we will do a joint episode. I saw a lot of you guys asking: can we do a thorough go-back from the beginning for some people that are just kind of learning about this case and getting involved? Go from the beginning, kind of unpack what has happened, and also have an opportunity to look through what the state's evidence is — that opportunity that was missed sorely by the incredibly insincere and disingenuous Andrew Wilson. I want you guys to have that information and to be able to slowly walk through that. Doing a sort of longer episode with Baron Coleman will give me that opportunity. So we will do that before I pass the torch. We've just got a few more weeks here until this baby comes.
And obviously we have now included a very strong clause that he's not allowed to discuss sandwiches in any capacity. Hoagies. He's just not allowed to do that on this show. We will not allow him to be out here saying crazy things like hot dogs qualify as sandwiches. We need to keep people together, and that is not how you unite the country. It's just not how you do it.
"Lady Lala" writes: "I know you say that you are not voting anymore, but can we please flip the House and Senate and take power from Trump?" No.
"Anna Kay" writes — you thought it was Anaka Casparian. That would have been a great one though. That would have been a fun one to have Anaka Casparian, but I want to keep going on with the Charlie Kirk case, and I know that she covers multiple topics and she's just getting into it. I went on her show and explained a lot of the things that are wrong with the case, which I was really grateful for because she has a different audience from mine. But yes, it is in fact Baron Coleman. And yeah, he will keep track of Tricky Terrell, because Tricky Terrell bothers us all. We don't know how he's allowed to just be this tricky and just get away with it. It just feels wrong. It just feels like they're getting away with a lot.
"Lulu" writes: "Keep following the David Ovit stuff. It is deep. We are the people. Utah has everything that you need to know about this case. David and his wife took this child to Scotland and bought a castle and kept her there away from her family." I'm going to add allegedly — allegedly — because I'm obviously live-reading comments and so I don't know if there's any truth to that, and you are implying that there's a safety issue there. I do not know that. I know nothing about a child being taken to Scotland. But I will look more into David Ovit because I do think that is an interesting thread that needs to be pulled. You know, there has been a lot of satanic abuse claims, full stop, in Utah outside of David Ovit — a steep history of those sorts of things. And yeah, it is something that somehow we feel like we're arriving at again here in the Charlie Kirk case, which should make no sense, and yet somehow it seems to be what's staring us in the face.
"Ali" writes: "Love Tucker Carlson — you're referring to — but I disagree with him regarding Erika. He said when he first met Erika, he was impressed by her fearlessness and her intensity and how Charlie valued her." Well, what about loyalty? She lied about his Iran war views, covered up his Israel views, and handed Turning Point USA to the Daily Wire. I did not see this clip of Tucker. But what you cite here is that he says when he first met her — so I think we all met a different person than she is today. Obviously, I told you that when I was at Tucker's in May of 2025, Erika was there the night before ranting about Israel and pushing Charlie in that anti-Israel direction. So I don't know. I don't think anybody knows this Erika. Again, I don't know what Tucker said in his full comments, but it's totally plausible that she just switched to another personality, because that's what I've seen since May. Like, we were all talking about Israel and now all of a sudden she's very pro-Israel and partnered with — what is it called — the ICF. It's like the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. That contract got revealed by Max Blumenthal. Is anybody surprised? Because you shouldn't be.