Two Native American teenagers were removed from a Colorado State University campus tour on Monday. Police pulled 17-year-old Lloyd Gray and 19-year-old Thomas Gray away from the visiting group after receiving a call from another parent who said she was nervous about their presence. The officers released the two after confirming their tour reservations, but the group left without them.
Lorraine Kahneratokwas Gray says her sons saved money to travel from their home near Española, New Mexico, to the school in Fort Collins. “These boys scraped together money, the travel money to go up there and took our family car and left me here with no car walking places and bumming rides,” she said.
Gray says her older son called her frantically during Monday’s encounter, saying “somebody called the police on us because we were quiet.” Lorraine believes the parent alerted the police because of the way they look. “They had to fabricate a little bit of some kind of fear for the police to come and frisk them and make them empty their pockets,” she said.
The university called the case “sad and frustrating” in a campus email sent to all employees and students. The school says it’s reviewing how similar incidents can be avoided or handled better in the future.
