Local law-enforcement agencies in state of readiness

Local law-enforcement agencies in state of readiness

Sept. 12, 2001

By Aspen C. Emmett
Journal Staff Writer

Local law-enforcement agencies are on heightened alert with emergency response plans in place for worst-case scenarios in light of Tuesday morning’s New York and Washington, D.C., tragedies.

Although officials are relatively confident that the terror on the East Coast won’t stretch as far as the Four Corners, the reality of mass chaos on American soil weighs heavily on everyone’s minds, said Montezuma County Sheriff’s Detective Lt. Kalvin Boggs.

"Basically, what we’re doing is, all of our sheriff’s office deputies are being placed on semi-standby," Boggs said Tuesday. "We’re ready to respond to whatever comes up. We’re not foreseeing any major things happening around here, but if something does happen, then we’re ready to respond to it."

Boggs said the sheriff’s office has not had any contact with state or federal law-enforcement agencies since two hijacked planes smashed into the World Trade Center in New York and another struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., Tuesday morning.

"We have emergency action plans that are in place," he said. "We team up with local EMS and area agencies in case something does happen."

Cortez Police Chief Roy Lane said his office is conducting business as usual and added that the department has not been contacted by state or federal officials regarding security issues.

"I’m sure they’re far too busy," Lane said Tuesday. "When things settle down and we have no more problems, I’m sure we’ll start getting more information in."

The local unit of the National Guard is also ready to move into action, although statewide, the guard has not been called on to respond to the devastation.

"Right now the National Guard is just on a heightened state of alert," said Guard Sgt. Dave Schmidt in Denver.

"We only have one unit that is on a one-hour alert status for mobilization and that is our civil support team out of Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora. It consists of 22 full-time members of the guard. But no one has been activated at this point."

Employees at Montezuma County Court and District Court were sent home earlier than usual on Tuesday out of respect for the countless lives lost in Tuesday’s tragedy.

"All the state court offices are closed — the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, State Capitol Building — and they strongly urged us to close, too," said District Court Judge Sharon Hansen.

But both courts did complete their scheduled dockets Tuesday before closing their doors and going home.

"From my perspective, it’s not a security problem here; it would be out of respect," Hansen said.

Hansen said she has encouraged her staff to donate blood at the emergency blood drive today at the Montezuma County Annex.

"I’ve told staff that they could take off to go donate blood if they want to do that, because we all thought that was one thing we could do," Hansen said.

The blood drive begins at 10 a.m. today and will continue to be open as long as there are donors.