A Colorado State football player working for a roofing company in Loveland was held at gunpoint earlier this week by a man who had mistaken the player and another employee for members of the activist group Antifa.
The incident unfolded Thursday, according to a report by 9news.com, when Scott Gudmundsen called police to report two men wearing face masks knocking on doors in his neighborhood.
When police arrived, they found Gudmundsen, 65, wearing fatigues and armed with two pistols pointed at the men, who were both on the ground. Police arrested Gudmundsen on charges of felony menacing and false imprisonment, according to Larimer County jail records.
Neither of the victims was identified, although, according to reports, the men were surveying the area for roof damage following a hailstorm and wearing polo shirts with the name of their company on the front. They also were wearing face coverings, per safety guidelines amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Gudmundsen’s son told KUSA-TV, an NBC affiliate in Denver, he had apologized for the actions of his father, who was receiving treatment at a mental health facility.
School officials, including university president Joyce McConnell, athletic director Joe Parker and football coach Steve Addazio, addressed the situation in a letter to the CSU community but did not name the player, according to an ESPN report.
“Our student is a young man of color while the perpetrator is white,” read the letter, a copy of which ESPN indicated it obtained. “Regardless of what investigators learn or reasons the perpetrator gives, we know this: Our student got up Thursday morning, worked out with his team, then showered and dressed and went to work.
“Hours later, he was facing a stranger with a gun and hearing police sirens that had been inexplicably called on him. Given what we have seen happening in cities across this country, we know all too well that this encounter could have proceeded very differently.”
Protests against racial injustice and police brutality have taken place in cities across the country following the May 25 killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died while in custody of Minneapolis police.
Cellphone video shows since-fired police officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, with his knee on the back of Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and on the ground. Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder.
The three other officers on the scene, also fired, were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
“We have been in touch with this student and his family and can reassure our community that both the student and his co-worker are physically unharmed and safe,” the CSU letter read, according to ESPN. “Mentally and emotionally, the student and his family are drawing on tremendous reserves of resilience, but nonetheless recognize that this was a horrific experience.”
