CSU student Tyler Loendorf just had a misdemeanor charge lifted off of his shoulders.
“When I met with the district attorney, he said there’s … a 2 percent chance the ticket would be dropped,” Loendorf said after emerging from a three hour Larimer County court hearing on Thursday, Aug. 15 where he refused to be represented by legal counsel or take a plea bargain in exchange for a lighter guilty sentencing.
The nuisance gathering charge issued to him in June stemmed from an 800-person Fort Collins block-party-turned-riot in late April. The fourth year communication studies major had come home from dinner with his parents at 7 p.m. and noticed a sudden spike in the number of partygoers flocking to his neighbors’ units, Loendorf said.
Since they’re conjoined townhouses, Fort Collins Police Services said it was difficult for them to pinpoint exactly where the party started, and where it had simply overflown in an interview in April.
Loendorf said his three hour back-and-forth with a county judge and city police proved he wasn’t guilty of a nuisance gathering, known as a “misdemeanor criminal offense and carries up to a $1,000 fine with a possibility of jail time or community services hours,” according to CSU’s Off-Campus Life website. “In addition, you might be responsible for paying the costs of police and fire personnel overtime, cost of repairs to city streets, and the cost of clean-up and or repairing any damage to neighboring property.”
Video evidence revealed, “I did everything that the cops would want… a person to do,” Loendorf said.
A Collegian review of police reports from the Fort Collins blockparty revealed similar conclusions from officers.
“LOENDORF was cooperative and did allow Officer Cundall to take a photo of him to compare with any photos or video captured by police officers,” read one report.
“Tyler said he asked the people multiple times to leave,” read another.
Loendorf’s mom, Trina, echoed her son’s earlier concerns.
“The hard part is, he has a lot of future stuff to do, and once your name is out there, that’s really hard to do,” she said. “It hurts when your son hurts. He feels bad. But there was nothing we could do to change the situation. I’m a true believer that he fought for what he thought was right, and it came out the right way…”
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