Robin Hood scene preceded Boulder stabbing

A college student was stabbed last week after drunken friends were re-enacting a Robin Hood movie, according to a Boulder police report.


Suspect Leo Beitz "said that they had been pretending like the movie 'Robin Hood: Men in Tights' and that he had a knife because of that," wrote one of the officers who eventually took Beitz into custody for the stabbing of University of Colorado student Parker Rolles.

In a three-page, single-spaced report, Boulder police recounted the scene they found Oct. 3 in the 1100 block of Lincoln Place.

One of the first problems the cops encountered after receiving word that Rolles had been stabbed was to calm a very drunk Beitz.

Beitz was subdued with a Taser after confronting the officers, according to the report.

Beitz had recently arrived from Illinois. In the ensuing hours, he and a number of people at Rolles' house proceeded to get blitzed, according to Boulder police.
Beitz admitted to having two shots and 10 beers.

Police said Beitz told them he was feeling unloved because the other folks in the house were "not paying as much attention to him." He was feeling picked on and left out.

Beitz emphasized, however, that he didn't intentionally stab the 21-year-old Rolles, who suffered two stab wounds. One was to the left side of his lower abdomen. The larger, more serious cut, was in the groin area. Rolles required surgery.

Beitz demonstrated to officers how he played his role from "Robin Hood: Men in Tights."

"He demonstrated with his hand as if they were waving a knife or sword," an officer wrote.

After the role-playing, Beitz said he went outside to smoke a cigarette, and he put the knife in his back pocket. He said he forgot about it.

Later, he said he went back into the house and was "ground wrestling" with another person at the home. He said Rolles jumped on him from behind and Rolles was stabbed by the knife that was sticking out of back pocket.

Others at the home told police that Beitz attacked Rolles and the attack was completely unprovoked — Rolles said and did nothing to provoke Beitz.

One witness said that he had seen Beitz become upset before, but in the past Beitz had never stabbed anyone. Previously, Beitz had just gotten mad and gotten "out of control."

According to the police report, police also confiscated marijuana and pot pipes from the home.

Beitz, 20, of Rolling Meadows, Ill., was arrested for investigation of assault, menacing and endangerment.

Robin Hood a baddie? Lay off our legend, Hollywood!

Until a few years ago, it seemed there were certain indisputable facts about Robin Hood: (a) he stole from the rich to give to the poor; (b) he had a band of merry men; (c) he rode through the glen. But here come the Hollywooders with a new Robin Hood film named Nottingham, throwing into disarray all we believed to be true.

Reuniting the gladiatorial combo of Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott, the new blockbuster will controversially take the perspective of the Sheriff of Nottingham, arch-nemesis of Robin Hood, proposing that the Sheriff was actually trying to keep the peace, while Robin was just some young thug in a Lincoln-green hoodie.

Hollywood has a track record of "re-imagining" British legends - let us merely whisper the word "Braveheart", for example. But it is true that the character of Robin Hood has shifted frequently through the centuries. The story of "Robinhood", "Robehod" or "Hobbehod" has been with us since the Middle Ages - he is first referred to as some kind of outlaw in 1227.

Over the years he has been a yeoman, a nobleman, a returning crusader, a campaigner against corruption, and a ne'er-do-well. The whole philanthropy business only began in earnest with the arrival of the Victorian era, and the publication of Howard Pyle's Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. Ever since, the name Robin Hood has come to stand for truth, justice and the British way.

However, our increasingly sceptical times have brought attempts to debunk the legend. Some speculate that he may not even have lived in Nottinghamshire - both Yorkshire and Leicestershire have sought to claim him as their own, the former naming an RAF airbase Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield. Yet more suggest there may have been more than one Maid Marion and in a recent television adaptation Friar Tuck did not even appear.

Why can't people stop meddling with Robin Hood? We seem to want to pervert the very notion of his pristine goodness, to prove the apple has a rotten core. Or we want to update him for the modern era, make him mockney and matey, give him some saucy sidekicks, complicate his motives, understand that gnarly old sheriff. Pah, I say! Let us embrace our national hero with his kind heart and green leggings, feared by the bad, loved by the good. Robin Hood! Robin Hood! Robin Hood!