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Notification about copters came too late, officials say

By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 19, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated June 19, 2008 at 8:19 a.m.

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Denver city and U.S. military officials said Wednesday that the public should have been notified before this week's counterterrorism helicopter exercises, which have rattled windows and residents' nerves.

But all sides stressed the benefit of the military Special Operations commandos training with Denver police and fire teams for a potential terrorism threat in a "realistic urban environment."

"We're very, very pleased and honored to have the Special Operations unit here," Katherine Archuleta, a senior advisor to Mayor John Hickenlooper, said in a speaker phone interview that included a military spokesman.

"We think that the training that has been going on in the last few days ... has been very, very positive, not only for our own community but also for the police department and fire department and the Special Operations unit," Archuleta added.

Lt. Steve Ruh, a spokesman for the Special Operations Command, said that the team has learned that it pays to communicate with the public and city leaders before sending black choppers with armed commandos.

"We will do a much better job with our protocol and coordinating with the city before we come in next time," Ruh said.

Archuleta added: "We've talked about how we can help in changing the way you reach out to the community in other cities."

The confusion began when four military choppers began flying over the city Monday night, swooping low over houses and downtown high-rises and repeatedly circling Coors Field during a Colorado Rockies game.

Soon police dispatchers were getting calls from people wondering what was going on.

Denver police Lt. Ron Saunier, who was briefed a week earlier by the military, said the military asked police Monday to "respond to inquiry only." So Saunier said he provided a "very generic statement" to police dispatchers in case the public called.

"Obviously that wasn't enough," Saunier said.

Part of the challenge is that military commandos are covert by nature, to protect their personnel and conceal their tactics, Ruh said.

He said that Special Operations teams have done low-profile training successfully in other cities without news releases and briefings.

A 1997 Washington Post article said the Special Operations Command had conducted at least 21 such exercises in U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Seattle over three years.

"In city after city, the exercises have drawn fire from frightened residents who are not told beforehand that the roaring helicopters flying in circles several hundred feet overhead late at night ... are trying to get as close as possible to the buildings they appear about to crash into," the Post reported.

Concern over this week's exercises in Denver prompted the mayor's office to issue a joint statement with the Defense Department on Tuesday night suggesting the military hadn't heeded the city's request months earlier give the public proper warning before the exercise.

"The federal agencies sponsoring the ongoing multi-agency training in Denver agreed to make the proper notifications regarding the exercises to prevent surprise and inconvenience to Denver residents," the statement said. "There seems to have been a misunderstanding about the reach and scope of these notifications, and they did not occur in the manner expected by the city.

"Although these exercises are in no way connected to the upcoming Democratic National Convention, Denver officials were well aware that there would be heightened sensitivity to an exercise such as this because of its proximity to the Convention," the statement continued.

Mike McDevitt, a professor specializing in political communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said it was hard to understand why the military and city wouldn't give advance warning. Especially given that people would notice the noisy night chopper flights.

"From a PR 101 perspective, it seems clear that this has been mishandled," he said. "It seems like such an obvious P.R. call to work with local officials and then local officials issue a press release ... to let people know what was happening."

Ultimately, not informing people did just what city and military leaders wanted to avoid — "Fuel speculation about a connection to the Democratic National Convention," McDevitt said.

Comments

  • June 19, 2008

    9:11 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Navy writes:

    Low profile? Uh - choppers flying around buildings isn't low profile, especially downtown Denver.