Aspen hotel receives bomb, shooting threat
An unknown man threatened to detonate bombs and shoot police and civilians at a downtown hotel Sunday, according to a police report. Aspen police, however, found nothing suspicious when they responded to the Aspen Square Hotel, the report states.
A man who called Pitkin County emergency dispatchers a little after 6 p.m. said he had “placed pipe bombs around the hotel,” the report states. The man also said he had a 9mm handgun that he would use to “shoot and kill anyone seen evacuating the building, and also kill any police going in,” according to the report.
“The male also told dispatch that he would be going to that location in ‘45 minutes to one hour’ and ‘people will start dying,’” the police report states.
An Aspen Square clerk later told police the man called the hotel, identified himself as “John” and made similar threats.
Aspen police officers responded but found nothing at the hotel, the report states.
More information about the incident was not available Monday because the Aspen Police Department heavily redacted a report about it released to The Aspen Times. The redacted portion of the report detailed “APD bomb threat procedures that we feel would be against the public’s interest to release,” according to an email from an APD records custodian.
Other parts of the report were blacked out because a detective continues to investigate the incident, the email states.
A message left at the Aspen Square Hotel on Monday seeking more information was not returned.
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