COLORADO SPRINGS — In the wake of a deadly shooting at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) in February, a former school leader has filed a federal complaint against the university, claiming the college was not prepared for the crisis.
Arthur Simental was the Director of Emergency Management at UCCS from Jan. 2023 to July 2024. He was in charge of the university's emergency response to the February shooting that left two people dead. Colorado Springs Police said a gunman shot and killed his roommate, 24-year-old Samuel Knopp, and 26-year-old Celie Montgomery inside a UCCS dorm room on Feb. 16.
“I felt sick. I felt like, again, this was the worst-case scenario, the nightmare that I had spent, you know, a year saying we needed to do something about and here we were," said Simental.
When he started his position in Jan. 2023, Simental said the emergency department he inherited was far from where it needed to be. He said his first concern was the university's Emergency Operations Plan (EOP), which defines who is supposed to do what in an emergency. UCCS confirmed the plan was last updated in 2016.
"UCCS has a great name traditionally within our community. So, I was expecting their program to be more advanced, and what I inherited was, I jokingly say, you know, a pile of rubble," said Simental. “Basically, we had a plan that was collecting dust on a shelf somewhere. And so it was useless. It was worthless."
Simental said he presented an updated 2023 EOP to campus leaders within a few months of working at the university. Jenna Press, a UCCS spokesperson, said that plan is still in the process of revisions.
“I was constantly badgering and trying to get this thing signed off, but it was continuously just pushed to the side, right, delayed," said Simental.
The three other CU System institutions, including the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, have updated their EOPs in 2023 and 2024.
Simental said he was also concerned about years-long gaps in emergency training and preparedness exercises at the university, which he said led to a chaotic response with unprepared staff during the February shooting.
"Throughout my history at UCCS, I have continuously tried to raise these issues, and have not gotten any response or anywhere with that. There was just an overwhelming lack, or basically an inability to make or enact these changes, and a lack of support from the leadership at the top to do so," said Simental.
News5 sent an open records request to the university for all documentation of emergency training given to employees and tests of emergency plans from 2014 to 2024. The documents provided by UCCS show the college had not conducted any Emergency Operations Center (EOC) exercises from 2020 to 2022. A UCCS spokesperson said that's because the campus was remote during the pandemic and did not fully return to campus until the fall of 2022.
The records show active shooter and emergency preparedness training was given to dozens of campus groups from 2014 to 2017, but documentation of those trainings thins out from 2018 to this summer. News5 reached out to the university for an interview with UCCS Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet to go over the campus emergency training records. She declined our request.
Chris Valentine, a UCCS Spokesperson, said the school has yearly hazardous materials training, fire drills each semester, annual residence assistant training, and regular exercises with different scenarios to practice emergency response.
However, Simental said the university's response during the February shooting, and in the weeks after, was chaotic.
“Everything from crisis communications, the sheltering, the care, the alerts and warning, the follow-up, all that, the messages that were going out to the media, the community," he said. “Some students or faculty members or staff or people that were on campus reportedly complained of not getting, you know, communications or knowing that the shooting had happened. It was just, it was ad hoc, it was chaotic."
On July 18, Simental sent a Clery Act Complaint to the U.S. Department of Education, expressing his concerns about the university's response to the shooting and emergency preparedness. The Clery Act lays out guidelines institutions have to follow for prevention and response to campus crime. Part of the act says universities must “publicize their emergency response and evacuation procedures in conjunction with at least one test per calendar year.”
In his complaint, Simental said:
UCCS has failed to updated, maintain, train, and exercise its emergency operations plan since 2016. Further it lacks emergency planning, policies, and procedures critical to manage emergency and crisis response such as emergency plans for evacuation, lockdown, shelter-in-place, accountability, crisis communications, recovery, public health and medical, and rapid assessment. These have not bee developed trained or exercised. The campus does not have a trained staff capable of performing emergency operations center management and managing crisis and consequence management. Further this has not been extended to undertaking activities and planning to prepare those with disabilities.
In the letter, he said UCCS leadership denied and ignored his calls for more emergency training. He goes on to say:
As of today 7/18/2024 I have been stripped of my authority to implement emergency management policy, procedures, or plans on campus. I have made multiple pleas for help and have been shunned, punished, and now cast as too aggressive for raising these issues.
On July 23, five days after he sent the complaint, Simental notified the university of his intent to resign at the end of the year. The next day UCCS Deputy Chief of Police Clay Garner sent a response saying "I have decided to accept your resignation, effective today."
News5 took Simental's concerns to the Clery Center, a national nonprofit that helps institutions comply with the Clery Act. Abigail Boyer, the Associative Executive Director for the Clery Center, said universities have to test their emergency plans at least once a year and the test can look different for each institution.
“There's flexibility in how they want to do that, or what that looks like for that specific campus. But certainly, the expectation is that the people who are responsible for implementing the policy would know how to do that and how to do that well.”
UCCS Spokesperson Chris Valentine sent News5 a statement in response to Simental's claims:
"It’s important to note that the individual who has filed the complaint is the individual who oversaw the university’s crisis response. In regard to our own assessment, the university proactively engaged a neutral third-party to review our campus response related to the event to learn all that we can. When that report is complete, we will publicly release an executive summary of the findings."
UCCS hired former Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers and attorney Jason Dunn to conduct a third-party review of the school's response to the shooting. UCCS could not give a timeline for when the finished report is expected.
News5 reached out to the U.S. Department of Education to ask if it's investigating the Clery Act Complaint sent by Simental. A spokesperson for the department said it cannot confirm any ongoing investigations.
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