On his birthday, April 5, Brenton Dolph, 22, made an appearance at a regularly scheduled Fort Collins City Council meeting, where he accused a police officer of dropping tickets in exchange for sexual favors. The next day, Dolph was arrested on the Colorado State University campus after it was reported that he was carrying a large knife and mumbling to himself in the Morgan Library, making bystanders uncomfortable.
Dolph, who according to police records has an exclusionary order against him which disallows him from coming onto campus, is homeless. Police described him as immediately argumentative, and said he was recognizable from previous contact.
After police questioning outside the library, Dolph was arrested by CSUPD officers April 6 for unlawfully carrying a weapon, disorderly conduct and trespassing, and was transported to the Larimer County Jail.
In the police report by arresting officer Sarah Larsen of CSUPD, it is written that the camouflage combat knife Dolph was carrying was about 13 inches long. The report describes that a deadly weapon is considered a knife with a blade longer than three and a half inches.
According to the report, when asked why he was carrying a large knife, Dolph said that he had bought the knife because he needed it to protect himself from raccoons.
Before his behavior was reported to police, Dolph also passed a sexually overt note to a female student who was working at library computers. The note read: “You seem like the sexy, fiery, submissive type. Are you?”
The student, junior biological sciences major Anna Ross, told officers that Dolph had passed her the note while she was at the computer in front of him. Since there was a barrier between the computers, she did not see the knife he had laid on the desk.
According to a written statement Ross gave to police, Dolph told her he did not believe in names and said he went by “Shakespeare.” He also mentioned to her his visit to City Council the night before.
The man who originally reported Dolph’s behavior, Robert Peary, 62, had also been working at a computer when he spotted Dolph. In his written police statement, Peary reported that he heard Dolph talk about his anger at city officials. Peary also wrote that Dolph had not taken the knife out of its holder.
Video footage of Dolph making a statement to the City Council during the citizen participation portion of their meeting the night before the arrest shows Dolph accusing a Fort Collins police officer of sexually assaulting 11 women in exchange for avoiding tickets. Dolph refused to introduce himself, claiming “Names don’t actually exist no matter what you’ve been brainwashed to think.”
Councilmember Ray Martinez of District 2 addressed Dolph’s concerns, advising him to report such a case to police.
“And it’d better be the truth, because these are serious allegations, and you’d better be right when you make these kinds of statements,” Martinez said. “I take these things very serious; I am a former police officer myself and nobody likes these kinds of allegations especially without facts or basis.”
Collegian Reporter Julia Rentsch can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter at @julia_rentsch.
