Following the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on September 10, the UNC Board of Trustees reviewed current plans to bolster campus security, and reviewed recent upgrades during committee meetings on September 24.
UNC Police Chief Brian James addressed the board directly, providing updates on a number of items related to campus security. He said that the incident raised concerns about keeping people who visit campus, and especially potentially controversial speakers or thinkers, safe.
“This has come up certainly with the tragedy that happened in Utah,” he said, referencing Kirk’s assassination. “We have a very robust system in place to secure events, which includes many of those campus partners I mentioned to include threat assessment, as well as emergency management, local, state and federal partners looking at intel on particular individuals that may come to campus considered to be high profile speakers, and also any active threats to our campus based on those speakers and based on the event itself.”
The highly publicized killing of Charlie Kirk raised questions on the national level about political violence, gun safety, and the security of college campuses and those who visit them. Trustee Marty Kotis, one of multiple members wearing a ‘fund UNC police’ button in the meeting, discussed the climate following Kirk’s death and related it directly to UNC’s need for a secure campus.
“We’ve been following the news recently with the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the young woman that perished on that light rail train down in Charlotte,” said Kotis, referencing Kirk as well as the recent stabbing death of Iryna Zarutska. “We’re considered, generally, a soft target because we’re open to the public and we’re a gun free zone, which invites bad actors to come in and want to do things. We’re doing a lot of events like the expansion we’ve done with the football program, having more people on campus. And that just makes [UNC Police’s] job more difficult. And the reason that we’re wearing all these fund UNC police buttons is that we need to make sure that the proper resources are allocated before something happens, not after.”
Trustee Marty Kotis speaks during the UNC Board of Trustees full board meeting held at The Spangler Center on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on September 25, 2025.
(Photo via Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill.)
James presented a number of updates to a series of increased security measures, which were initially ramped up in response to the August 2023 murder of associate professor Ziejie Yan at UNC. Among the upgrades listed by James were license plate readers, which he says were fully implemented in May of 2024, improved camera systems, and more.
“We’ve also invested in drones,” he said, “which we have used for high profile events and athletic events on campus, to monitor large crowds and also look at elevated locations where we could receive threats. We are also testing drone detection software, which we have used for about the last three weeks now.”
He also discussed the Carolina Behavioral Assessment and Management team, which he said is now fully implemented now under the leadership of Angel Gray, the Director of Threat Assessment and Management.
“They serve as a mechanism or bridge for students, faculty and staff to report any concerning behavior,” he said. “They refer those cases to us, as needed, based on the information that they obtain. We also continue to work very closely with local, state and federal partners as far as sharing information and also helping us to analyze certain information that we come upon that affects our campus.”
Following the Board of Trustees meeting on September 25, Chancellor Lee Roberts spoke on the issue of campus safety directly. While he said that he is happy with progress on increasing security, the process remains ongoing.
“Security remains an important priority for both the board and for the administration,” he said. “I think there’s more that we can do. A number of those additional steps were discussed yesterday. So we’re going to continue to invest and try to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to keep our campus as safe and as secure as possible. I don’t think security is ever something where you just check the box and say, “Okay, we’ve made the campus as secure as we can.” I think it’s a continued effort of investment and making sure that you’re doing everything that you can do.”
Featured image via Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill
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