Bombs Found in Wells Fargo, Vectra Banks in Aspen, Colorado New Year's Eve

A sixteen-block area of Aspen, Colorado- virtually the entire downtown- was shut down Wednesday night after two local banks received bomb threats.

At around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday an empoyee of the Wells Fargo Bank in Aspen called police to report receiving a threatening note.  Shortly thereafter an employee of Vectra Bank made a similar report.

A combination of hand-and type-written notes was also left at the office of the Aspen Times.  The notes claimed that there were 5 bombs in all.

A combined force of 190 county and local officials responded to the threats and eventually located 4 devices.  Two were found in the Wells Fargo and Vestra banks and two more were apparently abandoned in an alleyway, where they were found resting on a black sled.

A fifth device was never found.

Surveillance footage from one of the banks allowed police to identify James Chester Blanning as the bomber.  Blanning, reported as either 71 or 72 years old, was later found dead in his Jeep Cherokee, in an apparent gunshot suicide.  A rifle and a shotgun were found in the vehicle with him.

Blanning's notes had demanded $60,000.

Blanning was described by local sources as a native of Aspen with a history of unstable behavior.  In 1994 he attempted to commit suicide by climbing to the top of the Pitkin County courthouse with a noose.  After 7 hours he was talked down by police.

He was said to resent Aspen's evolution into a posh resort; the note left at the Aspen Times office threatened that a fifth bomb was planted in a "high end watering hole."

Several bars were searched but a 5th bomb was never found.

In contrast to the materials used in the recent Woodburn bank bomb, the Aspen bombs did not contain tovex.  They were gasoline devices.  Local bomb technicians detonated them, resulting in a fireball in front of the Wells Fargo Bank in one case.

The note left at the Aspen Times seemed designed to convince authorities that the bomber has trained with jihadi's in Iraq and was attempting revenge for the policies of the Bush administration.

Some quotes from the typewritten portion of the document (Language Alert):

You had better be a very cool individual and not start a panic or many in Aspen will pay a horrible price in blood.

...

...Do not fuck with us or there will be mass death like we have all been part of over in that fucking quicksand trap that Rove's and Chaney's monkey Bush put us into where so many of our soul mates and brothers died very horrible deaths.

...

...This is as much a suicide mission as a bank robbery, so if it gets fucked up, our souls have already been destroyed and we will all die like the rag-head martyrs that we were killing over there.  They trained us good for this sort of thing.

A handwritten note included with the above text seemed to indicate that Blanning had been in prison for a time.

You can read the complete text of both notes here. (Click on the photos of the notes at lower left to enlarge them.)

A report appearing in the Examiner gave some background information on James Blanning:

Aspen residents recalled Blanning as an eccentric who grew up fascinated by Aspen's past as a silver mining town. People who knew Blanning say he became disenchanted with his hometown as it turned into a holiday playground for the rich.

Mary Eshbaugh Hayes, who writes a weekly society column for The Aspen Timesnewspaper, knew Blanning as a boy in the 1940s and once employed him as a driver for her trucking company in the 1960s. Hayes recalls firing Blanning, a noted skier in high school, because he was unreliable.

"He was a very good skiier, but he didn't really fit into the new Aspen," Hayes said Thursday.

In 1994, according to newspaper accounts, Blanning climbed atop the Pitkin County Courthouse with a noose and threatened suicide. Blanning was talked off the courthouse after seven hours.

Police currently think that Blanning abandoned his plans after planting two bombs and simply dumped the rest in the alley.  Red Cross and Salvation Army personnel assisted in clearing the evacuated area, with included residential buildings.  No one was harmed, but all New Year's Eve festivities were effectively cancelled, since the evacuation order lasted until 4 a.m. Thursday.

Local merchants are complaining about the loss of revenue.

(Gee, thanks-- and Happy New Year to you, too, guys.)

References

Man Accused of Leaving Colo. Bombs Kills Himself-Yahoo

Suspect in Aspen Bomb Plot Attempted Bank Robbery-Denver News

Bomb Threats Force Evacuation in Aspen- ColoradoConnection.com

Police: Man Left 4 Bombs, then Took His Own Life- Yahoo

Please note:  Although the Aspen Times was directly involved in this incident- they received a note from the bomber- their site is currently slow and unstable from excessive traffic, so I haven't linked it.