A 25-year-old student who is believed to be responsible for the fatal shooting of two people inside a dorm room on the University of Colorado – Colorado Springs campus is under arrest. Police in Colorado Springs announced that they arrested of Nicholas Jordan in Colorado Springs on Monday morning.
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“It was really a smooth arrest,” said Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez.
Authorities said the suspect and the victims knew each other. The Colorado Springs Police Department said it was “not a random attack against the school or other students at the university.”
A 24-year-old man and a 26-year-old woman were found dead with gunshot wounds early Friday morning in Crestone House in the Alpine Village area. They were identified over the weekend as Samuel Knopp, a registered UCCS student from Parker, and Celie Rain Montgomery, who was from Pueblo.
Jordan is from Detroit and is enrolled as a student at UCCS, school spokesman Chris Valentine said. Police said they obtained an arrest warrant for him late in the day on Friday on two counts of first-degree murder. He was spotted by police officers near the 4900 block of Cliff Point Circle East on Monday morning and was arrested in a traffic stop and taken to the El Paso County Jail.
Colorado Springs Police Department
CSPD said their investigation remains active. They are asking that anyone who has information about the crime that might be helpful to detectives and hasn’t spoken with police yet contact them at (719) 444-7000. People who want to remain anonymous can call the Crime Stoppers Tip Line at (719) 634-STOP (7867) or 1-800-222-8477.
The university scheduled what it is calling a “healing march” on Monday afternoon at 2 p.m. at the Roaring Fork dining hall. UCCS Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet, student body president Axel Brown and UCCS Police Chief Dewayne McCarver were among those who gave remarks.
Monday’s walk began at the dining hall and ended at the El Pomar Plaza.
“Healing will take time. Rebuilding the trust and safety of our campus will take time,” Sobanet said.
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“We’re all in this together. I just know he’d be happy to see this,” said Haden Gillespie, roommate of victim 24-year-old, Samuel Knopp, a music student at The University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.
“I just want everyone to know that I love you and we’ll get through it together so, thank you all for being here,” said Gillespie.
Knopp was an accomplished guitarist, whose recital for the school’s music department posted online contains a wide variety of styles of play, from acoustic guitar and classical, to rock riffs played on a Gibson Les Paul.
“Of course, you have that feeling of being overwhelmed,” said Brown, the student body president. “It brings us together,” he said of the healing walk.
Across campus by the Crestone House, students were praying.
“These kinds of tragedies big or small, definitely hit all around the world. It always happens. But we don’t really feel it until it hits our atmosphere, our circle,” said junior Nissi Paugio.
As students placed flowers on the statue of the school’s mascot, there was support, both for the two killed and another student, Mia Brown who died of a medical emergency in the UCCS recreation center on Feb. 12 in an unrelated incident.
The UCCS campus is located along Austin Bluffs Parkway in northeast Colorado Springs. It is one of four universities in the University of Colorado system. The others are in Boulder, Denver and Aurora (the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus).
