It has been one year since a double homicide occurred in the dorms.
In the early morning hours of Feb. 16, 2024, UCCS student Samuel Knopp and Pueblo resident Celie Rain Montgomery were shot and killed in Knopp’s dorm room at the Crestone building on campus. Knopp’s roommate Nicholas Jordan stands accused of the murders and is awaiting trial. His trial is set to begin on April 7 at the El Paso County Courthouse.
UCCS spokesperson Chris Valentine reflected on the shift in campus culture after the homicide. “We had just started the spring semester last year when the tragic events of Feb.16 took place and had a significant impact on our campus community. When I look back on that time, the one word that comes to mind is resilience,” he said.
In the year since the homicides, UCCS leaders have made changes in several departments. Some of these changes follow recommendations made by a third-party review of UCCS’ response to the incidents leading up to and following the homicides.
There have been changes made to the CARE Team, Resident Life and Housing, the Wellness Center and public safety.
CARE Team
The Campus Assessment Response and Evaluation (CARE) Team is responsible for supporting students in times of crisis. In response to the Feb. 16 double homicide, the team made policy changes for the betterment of student wellbeing, according to Valentine.
The team has adopted MAXIENT, a surveying program that uses security systems to track and record unusual behavior. MAXIENT’s behavior tracking program allows the CARE Team to have more documented discussions about students who have multiple flagged behaviors.
The Dean of Students Office added two positions — a student support specialist and a student conduct specialist — to their staff, tasked to support the CARE Team.
Residential
Residence Life and Housing has made protocol changes following recommendations from an external consultant that was hired in fall of 2024. The consultant was hired to make recommendations for low occupancy and low retention rates in housing.
The external consulting ended in December 2024, and one of the recommendations was for roommate conflicts to be handled differently.
RAs are now required to go through increased conflict management training, where they are taught how to deescalate conflicts and signs of conflict, incompatibility and tension. Furthermore, there are plans to “overhaul RA training in fall 2025,” Valentine said.
Residence Life and Housing also completely restructured their organization, combining the separate departments into one unit, now overseen by John Lauer, the Senior Director of Residence Life and Housing, according to previous Scribe reporting.
“By combining Residence Life and Housing, the departments will have less oversight, resulting in students with any housing concerns feeling that they can be dealt with by talking to one person from one department,” Lauer said.
Wellness Center
Mental Health Services at the Wellness Center added crisis walk-in times, Monday to Friday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. This service encourages students in a mental health crisis to utilize UCCS’ counselors and therapists.
The center has created and implemented a psychiatric treatment protocol. Benek Altayli, interim assistant vice chancellor for health and wellness, said that treating students with trauma is different depending on the length of time since the incident.
“We added the protocol to address the needs of students in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic experience,” Altayli said. Now, every psychiatric faculty member at the Wellness Center is trained to deal with traumatic events from the moment they occur.
Public Safety
The Camera Project, a plan to install security cameras to improve campus safety, has been completed, with plans to initiate a follow up camera project soon.
“The Camera Project has been completed, so there are a lot more cameras around campus, increasing the coverage of crimes and crime prevention,” Valentine said.
The cameras are also tied to MAXIENT’s system. Since every camera is now a part of the server, all cameras will record and flag repetitive “unusual” behavior to be reported at the CARE Team meetings.
UCCS hired a new Emergency Operations Manager, Kris Parsons, who revised the Emergency Operations Plan and submitted changes to Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet for approval.
UCCS community members have coordinated a week of remembrance events in honor of the one-year anniversary of the incident.
Flowers laid on the Mountain Lion Statue in February 2024. Photo by Lillian Davis.