By
Kris Van Cleave,
Kris Van Cleave
Kris Van Cleave
Emmy Award-winning journalist Kris Van Cleave is the senior transportation correspondent for CBS News based in Phoenix, Arizona, where he also serves as a national correspondent reporting for all CBS News broadcasts and platforms.
September 19, 2025 / 7:37 PM EDT
/ CBS News
Glendale, Arizona — State Farm Stadium in Glendale, home of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals, can hold more than 63,000 people. But police are anticipating more than 100,000 people coming to the stadium Sunday in an effort to attend the memorial service for conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated last week on a college campus in Utah.
As a result, the organization Kirk co-founded, Turning Point USA, has also reserved the venue next door, the Desert Diamond Arena, for overflow. Desert Diamond, home to Arizona’s former NHL team, the Coyotes, seats about 18,000.
President Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other top administration officials are expected to be in attendance.
Multiple federal law enforcement agencies issued a security assessment to state and local law enforcement that was obtained by CBS News on Friday and indicated they are tracking “several threats of unknown credibility” against those planning to attend Sunday’s memorial.
However, the bulletin emphasized that there is “no information suggesting a verified or credible plot against the event.”
The agencies that released the bulletin include the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, and the U.S. Secret Service.
“Violent extremists and unaffiliated lone offenders may view the memorial service or related events as attractive attack targets due to the attendance of these individuals, other senior US government officials, state and local government officials, and political activists and due to major international media attention,” the bulletin reads.
CBS News reached out to DHS and the Secret Service for any additional comment on the bulletin, which was first reported by ABC News.
The U.S. Secret Service is the “Federal Coordinator” for the memorial’s security, William Mack, the Secret Service special agent in charge of the Phoenix field office, told CBS News in a statement, adding that the agency will work “side-by-side with state, local, and federal partners.”
“Not only are we handling the security for this event outside of the venue, we still have an entire city that we still have to protect,” Jose Santiago, spokesperson for the Glendale Police Department, told CBS News on Friday.
DHS has designated the service with a Special Event Assessment Rating Level 1, or SEAR-1, which is on par with the Super Bowl.
“This designation is reserved for events of the highest national significance and enables the federal government to provide the full range of law enforcement and security resources necessary to support local officials in ensuring a safe and successful event,” a DHS senior official told CBS News in a statement.
SEAR-1, though, is not the highest security event designation from DHS. That is known as a National Special Security Event, or NSSE.
Security measures on Sunday include uniformed and plain-clothes officers, drones and 300 cameras for surveillance, Santiago said. There will also be counterterrorism sniper teams, federal law enforcement sources told CBS News.
“The only difference here is when you have something like the Super Bowl, we had upwards of two years to plan an event like that,” Santiago said. “This, we had a week to work with…We are basically all hands on deck.”
Emmy Award-winning journalist Kris Van Cleave is the senior transportation correspondent for CBS News based in Phoenix, Arizona, where he also serves as a national correspondent reporting for all CBS News broadcasts and platforms.
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