Olympic Hopeful from UConn Appears In Court On Weapon Charges | News

From the Hartford Courant

Olympic Hopeful from UConn Appears In Court On Weapon Charges

By MATT BURGARD, The Hartford Courant

May 9, 2008, 1:16 PM EDT

EAST HARTFORD — A member of the University of Connecticut track team who hoped to make the U.S. Olympic team was arraigned on serious charges today in Superior Court in Manchester after he tried to buy a shotgun at Cabela's in East Hartford even though he had an active protective order against him.

Daniel Hutcherson, 23, a triple jumper who is set to graduate Sunday from UConn, was charged Thursday with criminal possession of a weapon and violation of a protective order, police said. Calling him a danger to the community, a judge kept his bond at $500,000 today after his court appearance.

During the court session, a prosecutor said that East Hartford police today found a weapon with a loaded magazine and drug paraphernalia at Hutcherson's apartment in Willington. His lawyer said he is about to receive a bachelor's degree if he can finish an incomplete and was going to try to make the Olympics as a triple jumper.

East Hartford police got involved in the case when University of Connecticut police alerted them that Hutcherson might be going to Cabela's to buy a gun. A Cabela's employee told police that Hutcherson started the process to buy a Winchester Ranger shotgun in March and returned on May 1, after the mandatory waiting period, to buy the gun, only to be detained by East Hartford police.

East Hartford police said UConn students and faculty and told campus police that Hutcherson has a substance abuse problem and that his behavior had become "bizarre.'' Police said they believed Hutcherson was "an immediate threat to the UConn community and/or himself.''

He was arrested without incident in the H. Fred Simons African American Cultural Center at UConn in Storrs and was then transferred to the custody of East Hartford police Thursday evening.