Man Arrested After Breaking Into State Supreme Court, Firing Weapon

(NationRise.com) – Denver police have taken a man into custody after he attacked the Colorado Supreme Court building on January 2nd. The suspect, 44-year-old Brandon Olsen, allegedly broke into the building at about 1:15 a.m., shortly after he was involved in a car accident near the building. The other driver said Olsen retrieved the gun from his car before running towards the building.

He then shot through the glass of a window on the ground floor so that he could enter. A security guard, who was not armed, heard the commotion and investigated. According to the guard, Olsen took his keys at gunpoint and used them to access a storage and maintenance room. He then called authorities for help.

Olsen would eventually set a fire on the building’s seventh floor before firing at police. The fire was extinguished by the building’s sprinkler system. At one point, he had a brief conversation with an emergency 911 operator before surrendering to police at about 3 AM. His gun was left on a table in an office on the seventh floor.

He was initially taken to the Denver Health Medical Center. However, authorities took him to the city’s police headquarters after the doctors cleared him. Officials interviewed him, but the details of that conversation have not yet been released.

There has been some speculation that Olsen’s motives were driven by the court’s recent decision to remove Donald Trump from the state’s ballot. However, Tori Schumacher, his ex-wife, told the Denver Post a different story. She noted that Olsen did not have a political affiliation. However, she did believe that he suffered a breakdown after she refused to let him see their children for New Year’s. Authorities have also said that his actions did not appear to be “associated to previous threats.”

Schumacher also said that she had divorced him over ten years prior. She avoided contacting him over concerns about his mental health and drug addiction. However, he called her ahead of the holiday to tell her that he was driving from Arizona to visit his children.