Man Acquitted On Riot-Related Charge After Standing Trial In Fort Collins With Broken Shoulder

Source: The Coloradoan
Date: September 24, 2013
By Robert Allen

An economics junior is the second Colorado State University student to be acquitted at jury trial after getting ticketed in connection with last May’s off-campus riot.

Dane Elliott Shore, 21, stood trial stemming from events his father calls “extremely awful” and unfair.

“He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time trying to do the right thing,” Don Shore, his father said. “Whenever the dust cleared, he was given a ticket because he was physically there.”

Don Shore said his son wasn’t living in the unit at the Summerhill neighborhood off Prospect Road the night of the riot. Dane had broken his neck in a car crash in January and was completing his coursework from home, but Facebook chatter of his neighbors’ house party made his parents nervous.

They sent him to the property, “protecting our investment” that weekend to make sure the party registered for 400 people didn’t lead to damage, the father said. The family claims Shore was ticketed because he was listed as a resident, and hours of video evidence showed nothing to incriminate him. It took several thousand dollars to fight the ticket even after CSU’s student conduct panel found no wrongdoing, Don Shore said.

Most of the people given municipal tickets like Shore took guilty pleas and were fined between $600 and $800.

“The easy thing to do was pay the fine and walk away, but it was the right thing to do, especially as a parent for a son,” he said.

The city attorney on the case couldn’t be reached by deadline Tuesday.

“I’m delighted for Dane and his family that the truth finally came out,” defense attorney Derek Samuelson said.

The weekend before trial, Dane Shore was hiking near Horsetooth Reservoir and broke and dislocated his shoulder. He put off surgery until after trial because he was worried about the repercussions of missing it. The father spoke with the Coloradoan on Tuesday from a local surgery center as his son was preparing for the operation, Don Shore said.

The other acquitted CSU student, Tyler Michael Loendorf, represented himself in court before the fall semester started. At least seven people were fined and other cases remain pending.

The social-media fueled event resulted from three parties in the same area that had used the party-registration system. Police repeatedly broke up the parties, but people kept coming and eventually turned on them. Police finally used tear gas, pepper spray and exploding rubber balls to break it up, sending hundreds of drunken, crying students back to their homes.