While some acquaintances describe Anthony Lightfoot '92 as angry and impulsive, others say the 25-year-old student who is currently in police custody in connection with a hate mail incident is a "decent person" with a strong worth ethic.
On Friday, the Hanover Police Department named Lightfoot a suspect in the case of a hate letter sent to Morris Whitaker '74, the treasurer of the Black Alumni of Dartmouth Association.
According to criminal complaint filed by the FBI in U.S. District Court in Concord, Lightfoot told Hanover Police he wrote the letter. He faces both federal and state charges, and Dean of the College Lee Pelton temporarily suspended him last Friday.
Lightfoot, who took two-and-a-half years off from Dartmouth to serve overseas in the Gulf War and in Somalia, is a government and history major and a staff member of The Dartmouth Review, an off-campus conservative weekly.
Several freshmen who live on Lightfoot's floor -- the first floor of McLane residence hall -- said Lightfoot has a volatile personality.
"Early this year, he wrote several messages on door boards about how we stood for the principles which had gotten his friends killed in the army," said one freshman, who asked to remain anonymous.
The freshman said Lightfoot wrote the messages in October after a long discussion Lightfoot had with students on the hall.
The discussion was about "how those of us who did not agree with his views were everything wrong with American society," the student said.
According to the freshman, Lightfoot also threatened another freshman that same weekend, telling the student he would "beat him up if he ever caught him on our hall again."
"Tony liked to brag about his accessibility to weapons and he would burst in rooms unannounced," the freshman added.
"Basically, these turn of events were a surprise to no one on the first floor of McLane," the freshman said of Lightfoot's arrest. The criminal complaint alleges that in a letter mailed from Hanover, Lightfoot threatened to lynch Whitaker and rape and murder his wife.
But other people who know Lightfoot have a much higher opinion.
Greg McCaghren '98, who lives on the first-floor of McLane, said he is "pretty good friends with Tony" and said he never had any problems.
McCaghren said the messages left on the boards of Lightfoot's hall-mates were intended as playful messages and were taken the wrong way. "He was a decent person, I thought," McCaghren said.
But McCaghren said he "wouldn't put it past" Lightfoot to send the hate mail, because Lightfoot has strong opinions on various things and is "a pretty impulsive guy."
Government Professor Mlada Bukovansky had Lightfoot as a student in one of her classes and said he was "a really excellent student."
Bukovansky said, "I found him to be a very conscientious, hard working student," and added Lightfoot received an A in the class.
Scott Martin '98, who lives across the hall from Lightfoot, described Lightfoot as "sketchy."
"He's a constant liar," Martin said. "The second day the FBI agents were in his room, I told him, 'There are people in your room' and he told me, 'Yeah, I've got a job with Intelligence and they're trying to find a background check on me.'"
Martin said he "wasn't sure how much Lightfoot considered himself African-American." Lightfoot's mother told the Associated Press that Lightfoot is part black, part white and part Native American.
