Independent review finds 13 ways UCCS should improve after fatal shooting on Colorado Springs campus

The University of Colorado Colorado Springs should take steps to better identify threats on campus and consider changes to its housing policies to more quickly resolve roommate conflicts, an independent review found, nearly 10 months after police say a student shot and killed his roommate and a woman inside an apartment on campus.

The 91-page report, released Thursday morning, lists 13 recommendations for policy improvements in the wake of the Feb. 16 double killing, including a “significant need” to update its criteria to track and address concerning student behavior. The report said university safety personnel could have intervened more forcefully before the shooting had staff been aware of red flags that were reported to police and other university officials. 

Nicholas Jordan, who was a registered UCCS student from Detroit, is facing two counts of first-degree murder. 

The report also identifies potential changes to the university’s emergency response, including more drills on campus, and more training for staff on resolving student conflicts. 

Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet requested the review to better understand the events leading up to the attacks, when Samuel Knopp, a 24-year-old music student, and Celie Montgomery, 26, were found dead inside Knopp’s apartment room. 

A police investigation revealed Knopp made several complaints to university officials about Jordan in the months before the shooting, including an argument the day before about overflowing trash that escalated when Jordan allegedly threatened to kill Knopp.

Police arrested Jordan three days after the shooting, when he was found about 3 miles from campus inside his car.

The review was conducted by law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and led by Jason Dunn, a former U.S. Attorney and Colorado Deputy Attorney General, and John Suthers, a former U.S. attorney, Colorado Attorney General and 4th Judicial District Attorney. 

The report did not find that any employee acted in bad faith or willfully disregarded the safety of others on campus, but it said UCCS officials could have taken “more aggressive and direct formal intervention” if Jordan was identified as an “elevated risk” on campus.

During a news conference Thursday, Sobanet said the university is committed to following the recommendations and that no staff violated policy or “knowingly contributed” to the attacks. 

“We have staff members and faculty here who carry guilt to this day and it is important to acknowledge that there is ultimately one individual responsible for these crimes and that is the person who committed the crime,” Sobanet said. 

In response to the report, university officials said changes to numerous campus procedures were underway prior to the shooting, such as switching to a new system to better track suspicious conduct by students. Better software allowing for information to be more easily and widely shared, has been in place since Aug. 1, the university said.

The Office of Dean of Students will continue its review of campus policies, incorporating recommendations made by the review, and submit for a final review this spring, the university said. There will be more training for all employees for identifying behaviors of concern and how to report them, and resident assistants will also receive more training on conflict management.

“Even with that effort, this report highlights how difficult it can be to distinguish between routine, persistent roommate conflicts and issues of a more dangerous nature,” the university said in a statement Thursday. “Roommate conflicts are not unusual on a college campus and are regularly resolved through education and mediation.”

University employees were “generally aware” of Jordan’s interactions with housing officials about his cleanliness, repeatedly clogged toilet, marijuana use and multiple requests to break his housing contract, but they were not notified of all issues, including written police reports of him sexually harassing members of the university’s women’s basketball team, until after the shooting, the report stated. 

University officials met with Jordan about his behavior at least five times, the report said, but did not formally recommend intervention. 

Based on university criteria, staff classified Jordan as a “mild” or “moderate” risk, but they could have identified Jordan as an “elevated risk” after police were called to Knopp and Jordan’s apartment after a confrontation, the report said. 

The report also found the university’s housing policies to be “overly bureaucratic and not sufficiently results-oriented,” citing Jordan’s multiple requests to move off-campus before the shooting. 

UCCS leadership was criticized over how it responded to the shooting and for making statements that there was no existing threat to campus, despite the fact that Jordan was not arrested until three days after the shooting. 

On Thursday, Sobanet said the university determined it was safe to re-open campus following the Friday morning shooting after learning that the attacks were between people who knew each other and that it was not a random act.

“Although I was not able or permitted to release confidential information shared by CSPD, this report confirms that by Sunday evening, the police knew the precise location of the suspect and indicated to me that they would be arresting him as safely as possible,” Sonbanet said. 

“The report shows that we were constantly coordinating with CSPD to ensure our safety,” she added.

University officials confirmed Jordan wasn’t allowed to carry a weapon in the dorms, but the killings of Knopp and Montgomery reignited a conversation on the school’s weapon policy. 

More than 1,000 people signed a petition urging the university’s voter-elected governing body to change its policy and ban firearms on all university campuses.

During a University of Colorado regents meeting in April, Haley Crist, an 18-year-old UCCS student and co-lead for the school’s Students Demand Action chapter, told regents that the fatal shooting has shattered students, faculty and staff who are “moving through campus with new fears, uncertainties and anger.” 

“Instead of offering sympathy, we are demanding you to take action. Demonstrate to me and the other 900 CU affiliates who could not be present here today that you are committed to meaningful change,” Crist said, citing the petition.

University regents decided not to amend the campus policy, but said it would follow a new state law that went into effect July 1, which banned concealed carry permits on college campuses. 

Concealed carry had been permitted on all CU campuses since 2012 when Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled that a campus gun ban was unconstitutional. But that rule was questioned by a law passed in 2021, which allowed local municipalities, including governing boards of universities, to pass stricter gun laws than the state’s laws. 

Jordan has pleaded not guilty in the shooting and his two-week trial is set to begin April 7.