Case Studies: High Profile Public Speaker

Published: 10/28/2025

Case Study 2: High Profile Public Speaker Attack

On September 10, 2025, at about 12:23 p.m., a high-profile public speaker was speaking at his “American Comeback Tour” by Turning Point USA at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. While the speaker was engaging in a public debate, a shooter shot the speaker in front of 3,000 students from the roof of a campus building (around 142 yards away) and ran away. A few days later, we now know that the 22-year-old man was arrested and charged with aggravated murder. Evidence from the rifle found and text message confessions have matched the DNA of said man to the shooter. The man is currently being prosecuted by authorities and has signaled their intention to seek the death penalty.

According to multiple reports, no aerial drones were used to protect the speaker from being assassinated. Imagine if a high-profile public speaker had a squadron of purpose-built drones positioned and operating under an FAA-approved public-safety plan. These drones could have saved lives. Some ways the drones could have protected someone would be by providing aerial situational awareness, scanning rooftops, adjacent buildings, and crowd perimeters with a combination of high-resolution electro-optical (EO) cameras, thermal imagers, and LiDAR. That multi-sensor feed gives security teams the ability to detect suspicious activity, anomalous heat signatures, or unusual movement patterns far faster than ground patrols alone.

In addition, the drone systems would stream live, geo-tagged video and telemetry into a secured command dashboard. Incident commanders could see exact coordinates and a live map overlay, share those coordinates instantly with nearby security officers, and cue ground assets for rapid interception or evacuation routes. This real-time intelligence would shorten the time between detection and response—a critical difference at high-density events.

Eagle Eye’s fleet can include several mission types working together: small, nimble quadcopters for rooftop and crowd surveillance; tethered drones for long-duration, high-altitude overwatch of the main venue; and larger, heavy-lift platforms that carry advanced sensors or extended-range communications relays. Tethered or docked launch stations could allow drones to stay mission-ready and relaunch quickly if a new sector requires attention—an operational advantage over single-use or ad-hoc deployments.

Finally, modern drone platforms increasingly incorporate on-board analytics (AI) that flag anomalies—e.g., a person climbing to an unusual rooftop position or a heat signature inconsistent with normal crowd behavior. These would help focus human attention where it matters. Combined with redundant communications (cell/mesh/radio relays from drone assets), this would make the security posture more resilient even in congested environments. As regulatory frameworks evolve to streamline waivers and BVLOS/public-safety approvals, these capabilities would ease the deployment legally and quickly for life-safety missions.