Five individuals are now facing charges in connection with the threats made towards Colorado State Rams safety Henry Blackburn per a report by the Denver Post. Blackburn drew negative criticism after a late hit on Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter in the Rocky Mountain Showdown in September that caused him to miss multiple weeks with a lacerated liver.

The play was widely debated on social media during and following the game about whether the hit was dirty. Amid the debate, Blackburn reportedly received 7,000 threats on social media. 

The Fort Collins Police Service on Facebook, Detectives spent over 100 hours investigating the threats per a Facebook post by the Fort Collins Police Service. As a result of the investigation,  one adult and four juveniles have been identified for the actions against Blackburn and have probable cause for misdemeanor charges. The names of the individuals as well as specific charges have not been disclosed. 

The five suspects have been issued a court summons, as confirmed by Fort Collins police. The nature of the threats against Blackburn and his family, including death threats, has been widely reported.

It's worth noting that Deion Sanders and Travis Hunter have both spoken against the threats that Blackburn received following the Colorado State vs. Colorado game. Sanders vehemently spoke against the threat, saying, “He made a tremendous hit on Travis on the sideline. You could call it dirty, you could call it he was just playing the game. But … it does not constitute that he should be receiving death threats. This is still a young man trying to make it. “He does not deserve a death threat over a game. Very unfortunate. I'm sad. If there's any of our fans, that's on the other side of those threats, I would hope and pray not, but that kid was just playing the best of his ability. He made a mistake. So I forgive him.”

Hunter met up with Blackburn and did a video with him on his YouTube channel where they interviewed each other and they faced off against each other in bowling.

In the video, Hunter said, “Football's just a game at the end of the day, and we're the people that play it, We're going to get hurt eventually…This video is something good. Us coming together is something good that came out of that injury and that football game.”

Henry Blackburn, in the video, reiterated that he didn't intend to hurt Hunter with the hit and said that Hunter helped in calming down some of the animosity that he faced online.

“All that stuff that went down after the game, I can take it, I'm not tripping about me. I've got two little sisters at the house still in elementary school, so that's what mainly I was worried about, their safety and everything. I appreciate you coming out and saying it's football because that helped calm things down.”