The authorities said they did not believe the shooting was related to previous threats against the justices who barred Donald J. Trump from the state’s primary ballot.
A man was arrested early Tuesday after breaching the Colorado Supreme Court building, holding a guard at gunpoint and opening fire inside, the local authorities said. No injuries were reported, although the judicial center suffered extensive damage.
The incident, coming two weeks after the court voted to bar former President Donald J. Trump from Colorado’s 2024 presidential primary ballot, comes as tensions have risen across the country over legal challenges to Mr. Trump’s eligibility to run for president.
Justices on the court have reportedly received death threats since the decision on Mr. Trump was handed down, but the authorities in Colorado said they did not believe the shooting on Tuesday was associated with those threats, which remain under investigation.
The man who opened fire inside the Colorado judicial center, which houses the state’s Supreme Court and other judicial agencies, had been involved in a car crash nearby and had reportedly pointed a handgun at the other driver, the State Patrol said in a news release.
The gunman, identified by the Denver police as Brandon Olsen, 44, then shot out a window of the Judicial Center, entered the building and held one of the security guards at gunpoint, demanding the guard’s keys. The guard was not armed.
The suspect then went to the seventh floor and fired additional shots inside the building, and at some point started a fire in the stairwell, the authorities said.
Denver police officers and Colorado state troopers surrounded the building. At 3 a.m., officials said, the suspect called 911 and surrendered.
Mr. Olsen is being held for investigation of robbery, burglary and arson, the police said. The Denver district attorney’s office will make a final determination on charges.
Last week, Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, was the victim of a “swatting” call to her home, just one day after she barred Mr. Trump from the Maine’s primary ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Ms. Bellows’s staff have also received “nonstop threatening communications” she said in a post on Facebook. “We should be able to agree to disagree on important issues without threats and violence,” she added.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
