The Colorado State University student arrested earlier this month after he locked himself to equipment at an oil and gas site near Bella Romero Academy in Greeley now faces a lawsuit filed from the company that owns the site.

Extraction Oil & Gas filed a complaint in Weld District Court against 23-year-old Cullen Lobe on March 9, then amended and filed it again Thursday. The “lawsuit seeks to stop the defendants from committing further criminal and civil trespass, criminal tampering, and other unlawful and tortious conduct,” the complaint stated.

Extraction officials explained the concern is more for people’s safety rather than stifling their right to free speech. Jason Flores-Williams, Lobe’s attorney, called the lawsuit “bullying tactics.”

“This is (Extraction Oil & Gas) sending a message to everyone who is critical of the Bella Romero fracking site, saying, ‘Shut up and be quiet,'” Flores-Williams said Friday. “They’re using their resources and hiring a high-powered law firm to send a message to the rest of the community.”

To read the lawsuit, click the full screen icon.

The complaint names Lobe, as well as four other people – Brian Hedden, John Lamb, Jeremy Mack and Mary Delffs – as defendants in the case, and also asks the court to force them to pay “all available damages, fees and costs, including at least nominal damages.” Additionally, the complaint seeks a ruling to prevent the defendants from committing “any further trespass” on Extraction Oil & Gas sites, which are scattered throughout the Front Range.

The civil lawsuit runs parallel to the criminal cases Lobe, Hedden, Lamb, Mack and Delffs face in Weld County Court. Both stem from March 8, when, according to Weld County Sheriff’s deputies, the five trespassed on Extraction’s oil and gas site southeast of Bella Romero Academy in the area of U.S. 34 and 20th Street to protest drilling near a school. Lobe chained himself to a front-end loader on the property with a PVC lockbox, which proved challenging for deputies and Greeley firefighters to undo. Once they freed him from the equipment, however, Lobe was arrested on suspicion of second-degree trespassing and tampering with oil and gas equipment and booked into the Weld County Jail.

Brian Cain, spokesman for Extraction Oil & Gas, in an email declined a request for a phone interview, saying the company’s office was closed Friday. But he did send a statement from the company.

“Last week, we filed injunctions against some individuals who were involved in trespassing on one of our locations while operations were underway,” the statement reads. “We wish to make it clear that we cannot tolerate extremist or illegal acts committed by people who would endanger their own lives and the lives of our coworkers.”

In the complaint, the company names “John and Jane Does” as defendants, something that concerned Flores-Williams. It’s a legal maneuver that allows the company to sue more people as the case goes on, if the company’s attorneys learn others were involved. The complaint makes mention of the Suede Light Brigade, an environmental organization to which Lobe and the other protesters belonged. Flores-Williams said he is concerned Extraction Oil & Gas may name other people who helped plan the protest as defendants in the case, if attorneys learn those people helped plan the protest.

“The mere act of attending a meeting to organize a protest…could now open you up to civil liability,” Flores-Williams said.

Yet the company’s statement acknowledges the need to preserve the right to freedom of speech.

“In Colorado, there is a lawful process for our political views to be heard through permitted and peaceful protest,” the statement reads. “However, trespassing and tampering with oil and gas equipment are criminal acts that could cause serious injury, and are not responsible ways to communicate misguided political statements.”

That sentiment is reiterated in the amended complaint, where the company’s lawyers write the company “does not seek to prohibit any defendants’ lawful exercise of free speech.”

Flores-Williams remained unconvinced.

“Cullen (Lobe) has no intent to trespass,” he said. “He’s a college student who works in a donut shop and studies journalism. These are bullying tactics. They’ve made the decision to do this.”

The case is scheduled for a court date in Weld District Court in May.