In the Wake of Charlie Kirk’s Assassination: A Protector’s Reflection

Today was my first time back in the saddle leading a protective detail since that phone call—moments after an assassin’s bullet struck and killed Charlie Kirk. I stood beside my principal before he stepped onto stage, scanning the venue. My eyes locked on the first few rows—the red zone—studying faces, body language, clothing, looking for anything out of place. But my mind kept drifting upward, to the elevated positions in the farthest points away inside the venue. What if a gunman was there? Would we see them among 2,500 people? What if my teammate missed something? What if we all missed something?

The entire time, I was hyper-focused on my principal and our close surroundings, but I couldn’t silence the echo in my mind: What was Kirk’s detail thinking in those final moments? What did they miss? What would I have done?  Those questions have haunted me ever since.

It’s tempting to critique the protective team, but that’s unfair. None of us know everything. Security professionals are human, operating under real-world limits. Budgets and client decisions drive team size and resources. I believe Kirk’s detail wanted to do their job the best they could. I’m sure they are all seasoned, talented, and experienced operatives. Now they are living every protector’s nightmare—second-guessing every moment, feeling immense emotion and regret. That could have been me or my team on any given day.

Redefining Our Approach in an Evolving Culture of Violence

For generations, assassination meant presidents and heads of state: Lincoln, McKinley, Kennedy. Then it widened to include senators and civil rights leaders—Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. In recent decades, Gabrielle Giffords was nearly killed outside a grocery store, Steve Scalise shot at a baseball practice, and Shinzo Abe murdered with a homemade gun in Japan. Now, the scope includes CEOs, journalists, pastors, even private citizens. Ten years ago, if you said “assassination,” most people would have said Lincoln or Kennedy. Today, the list is tragically broader.

No victim wakes up thinking, “Today is the day.”

Reagan didn’t, stepping out of the Washington Hilton in 1981. The Las Vegas concertgoers never expected gunfire from a hotel window. Families at the Boston Marathon never imagined homemade bombs. Worshippers in Charleston opened their Bibles, not knowing hate had walked in the door. Shinzo Abe could not have imagined a crude, improvised weapon ending his life mid-speech. Crowds on Bourbon Street in New Orleans didn’t expect a vehicle to plow through them. And just days ago, a young woman in Charlotte, North Carolina never expected to be stabbed to death on a train as she sat peacefully.

Our culture has reached an unprecedented level of violence. There is no quick fix. No easy remedy. Within days of Kirk’s death, an innocent woman was murdered on a train, another school shooting unfolded, and the world’s most influential podcast host was assassinated.

One of the most sobering realities of violence is not only that it is always unexpected, but that most of us live under a quiet presumption that it will never happen to us. Psychologists call this risk perception bias—the tendency of human beings to underestimate threats to themselves while acknowledging that those same threats exist for others. It is part of our wiring, perhaps even a survival mechanism. If we lived everyday conscious of all the possible dangers, we would be paralyzed. Our humanity demands that we push forward, assume safety, and focus on living. Even people in the public eye—politicians, celebrities, executives at Fortune 100 companies—acknowledge, at least intellectually, that the risk is higher for them. Yet even they often fall victim to this same psychological blind spot: “Yes, it could happen…but not to me.” That subtle self-deception is what allows us to walk through airports, attend large gatherings, and step onto stages with a subconscious expectation that we will always come home.

I am not suggesting that anyone should live in fear. As a person of faith, I recognize scripture teaches us not to live enslaved by fear. Fear is paralyzing, and it is not from God. But faith and wisdom are not opposites. Scripture also affirms that we have been given discernment, judgment, and responsibility to exercise sound decision-making. We are not called to ignore threats—we are called to steward our lives, and the lives entrusted to us, with wisdom. That is where the fine line emerges. To expect the unexpected can easily cross into fear. But to plan for the unexpected is an act of wisdom. It is not paranoia, it is prudence. Preparedness is not fear-driven—it is responsibility-driven.

When it’s just us, many of us are willing to take more risks. We dismiss precautions because we think, “If something happens, it happens.” But the question is this: are we willing to take that same risk with our spouse, our children, our staff, or our colleagues? If we truly stopped and asked ourselves, “What would life look like for the people around me if something happened to me today?”—how would my family, my team, my community carry the burden?—we might take preparation and personal security far more seriously.

And this is where the role of the professional protector becomes vital. The principal doesn’t have to focus on expecting the unexpected. In fact, they shouldn’t. That burden belongs to us. It is our calling to think about the unthinkable, to prepare for the improbable, and to stand in the gap so that others can live, work, lead, and serve without carrying that weight. That is not just a tactical responsibility. It is a moral one.

The Cycle of Forgetfulness

Every attack sparks quick fixes aimed at preventing the last one. After the Boston bombing, it was about explosives. After Pulse, radicalization. After Nashville, school security. And then we moved on—until the next tragedy. But every act of violence is unique. The weapon changes. The method changes. The setting changes. A knife. A Molotov cocktail. A car. A drone. Powder. Glitter. Liquids. At the office. At church. On vacation. At home. A man dressed as a police officer ringing a legislator’s doorbell late at night and then murdering them. Who would have expected that? No one predicted the last attack. No one will predict the next. But after each, we move on with reckless abandonment of what we’ve seen, experienced, and learned. Because inevitably, there’ll be the next one.

One of the deepest challenges we face, both as protectors and as a society, is what I call the cycle of forgetfulness. Human beings are, by nature, wired to move on from pain. Psychologists call this the psychology of forgetting—a cognitive defense mechanism that allows us to carry on with life after tragedy. If we carried every wound and every horror on the surface of our minds, the weight would crush us. Forgetting is part of how humanity survives.

Couple that innate tendency with our modern lifestyles, and the effect is amplified. We are busy, always in motion, consumed by the demands of work, family, and endless to-do lists. Our news consumption is no longer tied to thoughtful reporting cycles; it is driven by the rapid churn of the internet. Stories move fast—sometimes only hours in the spotlight—before being replaced by the next headline. News outlets are in constant competition, racing to grab clicks, and society itself has become desensitized. We aren’t drawn to careful reflection anymore—we are conditioned to crave the next bombastic, sensational, and adrenaline-charged story. And the truth is, we don’t want to dwell on sorrow. As a culture, we avoid grief. We scroll past tragedy because sadness is inconvenient, because lament feels like wasted time in a productivity-driven world. Both intentionally and subconsciously, we push the memory of painful events out of our collective awareness.

This is why I find myself, perhaps even a bit sadistically, amused when I see a bumper sticker or hashtag proclaiming, “Never Forget.” I don’t mean that disrespectfully, but I cannot help but observe the contradiction. For all our slogans, our inaction reveals that we have, in fact, forgotten. True remembrance requires preparation, change, and resolve. But in the absence of those things, we have only empty words—and that very forgetfulness becomes fertile ground for the next tragedy to take root. Evil is not deterred by hashtags.

And so the cycle continues: tragedy, outrage, reaction, forgetfulness. Each act of violence fades into the background, only to be replaced by the next. And with each act we fail to remember, we quietly allow space for the next evil act to proliferate. And that is why, for protectors, forgetfulness cannot be an option. Society may scroll past yesterday’s tragedy, but our responsibility is to hold it close. To study it. To prepare for the next one. Because every forgotten lesson leaves us exposed.

Lessons for Protectors

Our first responsibility is to protect the life, health, and wellbeing of our principal. But we must also recognize a secondary responsibility: protecting their public image. These aren’t competing interests. With thoughtful collaboration, they can go hand-in-hand. While most clients don’t mind the presence of security, and they value the visual deterrence that it provides, they also don’t want to feel smothered or create a perception that they live in fear. They’ve got a job to do, and our job is to create a safe environment whereby the principal can do their job. So do your job in a way that has the least impediment or inconvenience on your client...but do your job. 

In outdoor settings, this means using low-signature tools that reduce risk without drawing unnecessary attention. Decorative screens, weighted barriers disguised as staging, or natural environmental features of the site can minimize exposure without alarming the crowd. By shrinking the visual line of sight, we reduce the number of people we must monitor, which allows us to focus more precisely on details—a lone figure on a rooftop, a person disengaged from the crowd, subtle signs in body language or clothing. Reducing the quantity of what we must surveil increases the quality of protection. Apply this same principle when preparing arrival and departure zones. Minimize your client’s exposure by leveraging natural cover, structures, and environmental features. Maintain strict access control in areas where your client mingles with crowds, and position your team to ensure rapid response to emerging threats.

All of our tactics should serve to prepare for the unexpected. Advance work must be treated as sacred. Every venue, every route, every stop must be scrutinized for vulnerabilities—including elevated positions and choke points. Security must be layered, with overlapping rings so one failure does not mean catastrophe. Counter-surveillance must be constant. Attackers loiter, test, rehearse—our teams must recognize pre-attack behaviors. Medical readiness must be built in. Seconds save lives. The ability to apply a tourniquet can mean recovery instead of a funeral. And principals must understand that security is not theater. Every stage placement, every route change, every delay is about survival, not inconvenience.

And yet, we must admit this: no one is going to guess the next method of attack. We don’t know if it will be a drone carrying a payload, a knife on a rope line, a handgun around a corner, a sudden infrastructure failure, a homemade explosive device in an abandoned backpack, or an unauthorized vehicle entering a supposedly sterile arrival zone. That uncertainty requires us to remain vigilant, engaged, and ready. This is why scenario training matters. Run through possible threats so your responses become muscle memory. What do you do if a drone approaches your venue? If power cuts out mid-event? If your exit route is suddenly blocked? The time to answer those questions is before the crisis, not during it.

Equally important, communicate these scenarios with your principal. The principal isn’t a bystander—they’re part of the team. If they don’t follow the plan, everyone is at risk. Take the time to explain not just what you’re doing, but why. When principals understand the reasoning, the risks, and the potential consequences, they are far more likely to buy in. That trust and confidence strengthens the entire detail. Understand, trust takes time, and building rapport with your principal requires patience and understanding. Part of your job is convincing your principal that this isn’t just a job; you’re invested and committed to their safety, even at the expense of your own.  Entrusting your personal safety and putting your life in someone else’s hand is a sobering decision.

The bigger picture is this: when you prepare yourself, your team, and your principal with deliberate communication and scenario planning, you condition your mind to react naturally without hesitation. And in this line of work, hesitation is deadly.

A Final Word

Charlie Kirk’s assassination has rattled me deeply. While risk is a part of the job, I don’t know how any individual could be in this profession and not be shaken. It reminded me that behind every protocol, every movement, every stage entrance, every walk to a car, there is a family waiting for their loved one to come home. Children standing by a window waiting on dad to pull in the driveway. A spouse waiting on the other to arrive home for dinner. Tragedy in this industry means an empty seat in the stands at the little league game. Silence rather than a parent’s voice reading a bedside story or giving a kiss goodnight. We cannot predict the next attacker, weapon, or stage. But we can prepare. We can layer defenses, refine choreography, sharpen awareness, and remain vigilant. Because in this profession, the only constant is the unexpected. And our sacred duty is to be ready anyway for anything.

-Judd Hollifield, SAIC, CPP, Dominion XP