Sometime before 7 on Friday night, members of the Concord High School community feared for their lives, if only for a brief moment, during a joyous occasion on South Main Street.
They had seen a man close to the entrance of Concord High School’s annual pre-prom Red Carpet event at Red River Theatre, pointing an unknown object toward the crowd and purposely holding it like a gun, Concord Deputy Chief John Thomas said.
Thomas said the man, who was homeless and later identified as Gordon Hollingworth of Concord, shouted, “I am going to murder you,” before police chased him down and discovered that the object was actually a paintbrush.
The Oscar-like Red Carpet ceremony continued, barely skipping a beat because a large majority of attendees never knew what had happened until later.
But those who stood near Hollingworth and heard his threat and the vile comments he aimed at the police believed this could have been the real deal, someone with bad intentions armed with a gun.
“A teacher was ready to jump,” Thomas said. “He comes forward and he’s yelling that he’s going to kill you. The officer looked up and he’s pointing the brush at the officer and the officer is thinking, ‘What the hell has he got.’ People near him started yelling, ‘He has a gun.’ ”
Officers Mark Hassapes, Brendan Ryder and Felix Mensah had Red Carpet duty that night. Thomas said that after a short chase, an officer drew his taser but did not deploy it. He said Hollingworth kicked one of the cops during the arrest.
Hollingworth was charged with disorderly conduct; resisting arrest; simple assault on a police officer; criminal threatening; and breach of bail three times over. He’s scheduled to be arraigned on Friday.
Concord High Principal Mike Reardon said Hollingworth wore a handkerchief over his face and screamed incoherently. He said Hollingworth raised his hand, “as if he had a gun. We freaked out. I was with a couple of administrators. He turned and took off, thinking no one would follow him and he was wrong.”
The three officers chased Hollingworth on South Main Street, Reardon in tow, after he refused to drop what he was holding. By that time, though, the police had recognized that the item in Hollingworth’s hand was not a gun. They weren’t sure what it was.
“He was holding it in a manner of a gun,” Thomas said. “Like he was holding the handle and the brush looked like the barrel.”
When Reardon returned to the Red Carpet event, he was surprised that no one approached him to learn what had happened.
“I walked back and no one said anything about it,” Reardon said. “No parents asked, ‘What was all that about.’ Maybe they were so engrossed with the kids I’m not sure how much it registered with them.”
Luckily, it registered with police that Hollingworth was not carrying a gun, even though he pointed the brush toward them.
That was fortunate, Thomas said.
“If they didn’t know that,” Thomas said, “It could have ended very differently.”