Utah students threatened during campus debate, as state eyes more money for security

An individual threatened to “Kirk” conservative students at the University of Utah on Monday, and then proceeded to gesture his hands in the motion of cocking a rifle aimed at them, according to a video recording of the event and police reports.

To the two students who sat at a table on campus, where they had set up an open mic in the hopes of engaging in debates with students passing by, his apparent threat insinuated that they should face the same fate as conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, when he was assassinated while holding a debate at Utah Valley University.

During a two-day public-forum debate, hosted by the Christian conservative group Reawaken USA with the Utah Federation of College Republicans, at the Salt Lake City campus on Monday, a student at the university who was passing by first refused to approach the microphone to engage with the students before allegedly threatening them.

Riley Beesley, vice-chairman of the Utah Federation of College Republicans and a student at the University of Utah, said it was toward the end of Day 1 of the group’s event when the man started calling them “fascists,” “pigs” and “Nazis,” and repeatedly saying, “You should die.”

The incident occurred at a time when state leadership is looking at committing more state funds toward campus public safety, following Kirk’s murder at UVU a little over four months ago.

The University of Utah confirmed in a statement to the Deseret News that the individual was a student at the school, and that he was arrested.

“On Monday, January 12, Dean Stewart, 21, disrupted an event and yelled at a member of Reawaken USA as he was debating in front of Marriott Library. Stewart said that he should be shot in the neck and repeatedly made hand gestures of shooting him with a rifle,” the statement said. “Stewart was arrested and cited by University of Utah Police Department for disorderly conduct, making threats, and disobeying a lawful order. He was booked into jail and released.”

Aden Nicholas, who works with Reawaken and was sitting at the table, told the Deseret News that offensive comments and vulgar gestures are not uncommon during college tours. But the “Kirk” comment was.

He added that he found it ironic that one of the topics of discussion was the group’s claim that the political left is more violent than the political right.

As someone who witnessed Kirk’s death, Beesley said it’s disheartening to know that his fellow students feel this way toward him because of his politics.

“I think it’s awful,” he said. “There’s no sanctity, there’s no value of life on the left anymore. … We have a First Amendment right, just as them, but it crosses a line when you say you’re going to kill somebody, so as an individual that saw Charlie Kirk die and then being told, ‘I’m going to kill you, I’m going to Kirk you,’ I think it’s awful. I never want to see it again.”

Video footage of the incident, viewed by the Deseret News, shows the individual being apprehended by law enforcement shortly after.

Utah Sen. Mike Lee posted on X regarding the incident that “Charlie Kirk would be devastated to know that ‘Kirk’ is now a verb — used by unhinged leftists to threaten conservatives.”

Are Utah’s college campuses safe?

Last October, the Utah Board of Higher Education voted to create a campus security task force whose priority is focused on “how to make campuses safer and how to create a system-wide approach to campus safety,” Katie Mazzie, associate commissioner of Strategic Initiatives, Community & Government Relations at the Utah System of Higher Education, told the Deseret News.

The task force was established a month after the assassination of Kirk, which took place in front of thousands at Utah’s largest public university.

Mazzie said Kirk’s death definitely drew more attention to the issue, but discussing needs and potential approaches for campus safety has been ongoing for about five years.

Jim Mortensen, UVU’s vice president of finance and auxiliary services, told the Deseret News that it has been a “very difficult year” for the UVU family as “we mourn the loss of life as well as the sense of safety our campus community has long felt,” he said. “By most measures, UVU remains among the safest campuses in the nation. Even so, we recognize that expectations and risks have shifted, and we must respond accordingly.”

Costly measures the campus is making to ramp up security include increasing campus law enforcement staffing by at least 50%, bolstering key infrastructure and sustaining an increased level of caution, Mortensen said, noting that any additional funds allocated through the state budget will help with these efforts.

“We will continue to emphasize situational awareness and community preparedness, and we are proud of how our students and employees have responded as we work toward a renewed sense of normalcy,” Mortensen said. He also expressed gratitude for the state task force’s work.

Geoffrey Landward, the state’s commissioner of higher education, said previously in a press release that this task force was an “opportunity to revisit our policies, our practices and our resources to determine how we can further advance safety on our campuses.”

“We must ensure that our colleges provide spaces where our students can learn, where our faculty can teach and research, and where communities can gather to exchange ideas and enjoy the beauty of our campuses safely,” he added.

Last month, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox released his budget recommendations for the fiscal year 2027. In it, he allocated $3,430,200 specifically to enhance campus safety and security.

The college’s public safety is mainly financed at the institutional level through state appropriations.

Spokesperson Audrey Perry Martin from Brigham Young University, a private school in Provo, Utah, which doesn’t receive state funds, told the Deseret News that “BYU regularly reviews security policies and procedures and has increased investment in campus security in recent years.”

Ensuring student safety on college campuses is a concern across the nation.

The Brown University shooting last month, where two were killed and nine others injured, was followed just two days later by the murder of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor. Though the incidents were found to be connected to a single gunman, the sequence underscored growing concerns among universities and law enforcement about how quickly targeted violence can escalate across campuses.

Mazzie said the campus security task force, composed of individuals with expertise in campus safety, will “make those determinations about how that funding will be applied” for Utah students.