A former UCCS leader says the campus was not prepared to respond to the February shooting

COLORADO SPRINGS — After a fatal shooting at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) in February, a former head of school has filed a federal complaint against the university, alleging the college was unprepared for the crisis.

Arthur Simental served as the Director of Emergency Management at UCCS from January 2023 to July 2024. He was in charge of emergency response at the university after a February shooting that left two people dead. A gunman shot and killed his roommate, Samuel Knopp, 24, and Celie Montgomery, 26, in a UCCS dorm room on Feb. 16, Colorado Springs police said.

“I felt sick. I felt again that this was the worst case scenario, the nightmare that I spent, you know, a year saying we have to do something, and here we are,” Simental said.

When he took the job in January 2023, Simental said the emergency department he inherited was nowhere near where it should be. He said his primary concern is the university’s Emergency Operation Plan (EOP), which defines who should do what in an emergency. UCCS confirmed that the plan was last updated in 2016.

“UCCS traditionally has a great name in our community. So I expected their program to be more advanced and I inherited, just kidding, a bunch of wreckage,” Simmental said. “Basically, we had a plan that was gathering dust on a shelf somewhere. And so it was in vain. It was worthless.”

Simental said he presented the updated 2023 EOP to campus leaders within months of working at the university. Jenna Press, a spokeswoman for UCCS, said the plan is still under review.

“I kept nagging and trying to get this thing signed, but it kept getting pushed aside, right, put off,” Simental said.

Three other CU System institutions, including the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Colorado at Denver and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, renewed their EOPs in 2023 and 2024.

Simental said he’s also concerned about years of gaps in emergency training and preparedness training at the university, which he said led to a chaotic response with untrained personnel during the February shooting.

“Throughout my history at UCCS, I have consistently tried to raise these issues and have had no response or any kind of response to it. There was just a tremendous lack, or basically an inability, to make or implement those changes, and a lack of support from the top management to do that,” Simental said.

News5 has submitted an open records request to the university for all documentation regarding emergency training conducted for employees and testing of emergency plans from 2014 to 2024. Documents provided by UCCS show that the college did not conduct any Emergency Operations Center (EOC) exercises from 2020 to 2024. 2022. A UCCS representative said this is because the campus has been remote during the pandemic and will not fully return to campus until fall 2022.

Records show that dozens of student groups underwent active shooter and emergency preparedness drills from 2014 to 2017, but documentation of those drills dwindled from 2018 to this summer. News5 contacted the university for an interview with UCCS Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet to review emergency training records on campus. She rejected our request.

Chris Valentine, a UCCS spokesman, said the school has annual hazardous materials training, fire drills each semester, annual resident assistant training and regular scenario drills for practical emergency response.

However, Simental said the university’s response to the shooting in February and in the weeks that followed was chaotic.

“Everything from crisis communications, sheltering, care, alerts and warnings, follow-up, all of that, messages that went out to the media, the community,” he said. “Some students or faculty or staff or people who were on campus reportedly complained that they didn’t get, you know, communication or didn’t know that there was a shooting. It was just random, it was chaotic.”

On July 18, Simental filed a Clery Act complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, raising concerns about the university’s response to the shooting and emergency preparedness. The Clery Act provides guidelines that institutions must follow to prevent and respond to crime on campuses. Part of the law says universities must “publicize their emergency response and evacuation procedures along with at least one test per calendar year.”

In his complaint, Simmental said:

In the letter, he said UCCS management denied and ignored his calls for more emergency training. He continues:

On July 23, five days after he sent the complaint, Simental informed the university of his intention to resign at the end of the year. The next day, Deputy Police Chief 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, associate executive director of the Clary Center, said universities should test their emergency plans at least once a year, and the test may look different for each institution.

“There is flexibility in how they want to do it, or what it looks like for a particular campus. But of course the people responsible for implementing the policy are expected to know how to do it and how to do it well.”

UCCS spokesman Chris Valentine sent News5 a statement in response to Simental’s claims:

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 is unable to provide a timeline for when a completed report is expected.

News5 reached out to the U.S. Department of Education to ask if it is investigating the Clery Act complaint filed by Simental. A department spokesman said he could not confirm any ongoing investigations.

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