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City, military officials say they will warn public in the future Peter Marcus Future Denver military training exercises will be communicated to the public before the exercises begin, city and military officials told the Denver Daily News yesterday. After city and military officials expressed a “misunderstanding about the reach and scope” of notifications concerning recent military helicopter training flights in downtown Denver, both the city and U.S. Department of Defense said in the future it will notify the public before such exercises begin. “We could have been more proactive in our community outreach to the citizens of Denver … to notify them that you’ll have Special Operations Command within the city from this time frame to this time frame, that there will be some things you will see flying through the city. We could have issued a statement and we didn’t do that,” said Lt. Steve Ruh, a spokesman for the U.S. Special Operations Command, which led the airborne counter-terrorism exercises. “We didn’t do our job. This was a hard lesson learned for us and we hope the City of Denver welcomes us back.”
(Article continues below) The Denver Police Department agreed that in hindsight, it also should have alerted the public earlier to the training exercises that included Black Hawk and Little Bird helicopters circling and landing on buildings like the old Children’s Hospital in Denver. “The police department can’t say that we didn’t learn a lesson,” said Denver police Lt. Ron Saunier, who was briefed a week earlier by the military and was asked to instruct police to “respond to inquiry only.” Important exercises Mayor John Hickenlooper’s senior policy advisor, Katherine Archuleta, was careful to point out that while communication strategies could have been better, the lack of early communication should not take away from the importance of the exercises themselves. “The most important thing for us is that the exercises and relationships established through the course of the training has been a very, very positive opportunity for learning,” she said. “Whether communications could have been better, we all learned lessons from that and we’re very honored to have the Special Operations Command here.” Ruh said that in other cities where similar training exercises have taken place, Special Operations Command left it up to the city to inform the public. He said in the future, Special Operations Command will make sure the public is notified. “Next time, this will not happen. We will stay on top of it to make sure people are notified,” Ruh said. Uncomfortable Denver resident Mark Leffingwell, who watched the helicopters land and take off Monday from downtown Denver, agreed that advanced notification would have made him feel a little more comfortable. “I think that if you have Black Hawks and Little Birds flying around downtown Denver, you might want to let the public know they’re doing training,” he said. “Conspiracy theorists might think that there’s something going on … an attack or whatever. A little information can’t hurt.” Training will continue until 11 p.m. Friday night. The purpose is to train in a “realistic urban environment,” said Ruh. Officials say the training has nothing to do with the Democratic National Convention scheduled for Denver this summer. A building evacuation drill yesterday afternoon in the 1600 block of Broadway had nothing to do with the military training exercises.
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