Officials at the University of Colorado’s Colorado Springs campus mishandled a student’s problematic behavior for weeks before he shot and killed two people in a dorm room in 2024, the mother of one of the victims alleged in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The school failed to take action to protect students from Nicholas Jordan, the 26-year-old man who killed his roommate Samuel Knopp, 24, and Celie Montgomery, 26, who was visiting Knopp on campus on Feb. 16, 2024, Montgomery’s mother, Melody Montgomery, alleged in the lawsuit.
Jordan was convicted of the killings and sentenced to life in prison in April.
The 27-page lawsuit lays out a timeline of problems Jordan had on campus that started in early December 2023 and continued up until the February double homicide, including complaints that he sexually harassed multiple women on campus, used significant amounts of marijuana, did not clean and threatened his roommates.
Jordan asked to move out of his campus housing because he had a “bad roommate problem” on Dec. 7, 2023, the lawsuit alleges. He made several additional requests to move out in the coming weeks, but was caught up in school bureaucracy — his request to move was repeatedly stalled because he did the paperwork incorrectly, the lawsuit alleges.
Knopp also reached out to school officials to ask that Jordan move out. The roommates had several disputes between December and February, and campus police responded to complaints about Jordan on several occasions, including one instance in January in which Jordan threatened to kill Knopp because he was “snitching” to school police.
The school’s Campus Assessment Response and Evaluation Team, which exists to handle concerns about student behavior, was aware of Jordan’s conduct and discussed it on multiple occasions, but took no other action, the lawsuit alleges. The team is authorized to coordinate welfare checks, investigate student behavior, refer students to mental health services and take a variety of other steps to ensure campus safety, the lawsuit alleges.
“Defendants knew or should have known of the potential harm that could result from a mentally distressed person abusing drugs who threatens to kill his roommate by virtue of UCCS’ own polices and procedures,” the lawsuit states.
Melody Montgomery, who is now caring for her daughter’s two children, who are 9 and 7, is seeking monetary compensation, the lawsuit states.
Christopher Valentine, a spokesman for CU Colorado Springs, did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.
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