Thursday, January 1, 2009

ASPEN, CO: JAMES BLANNING RUINS NEW YEAR'S EVE WITH BOMBS


James Blanning's mug shot was taken in 1996 by state corrections officials. (Department of Corrections). He was sentenced in Rio Blanco District Court in 1996 to 16 years in prison for racketeering and white collar crimes encompassing forgery of deeds and wills, fraudulent security sales and forged money, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records.
Photo by Aspen Times
Surveillance video by a Vectra Bank camera in Aspen captured suspect, Jim Blanning, at 2:37 p.m. Weds.

WRITING ON ENVELOPE LEFT AT FRONT DOOR OF THE ASPEN TIMES NEWSPAPER.Photo by The Aspen Times
An envelope containing a typewritten letter was left at the front door of The Aspen Times office. This handwritten note was on the envelope containing the typed letter.

TYPEWRITTEN LETTER LEFT AT FRONT DOOR OF THE ASPEN TIMES NEWSPAPER.

Photo by The Aspen Times
An envelope containing a typewritten letter was left at the front door of The Aspen Times office. This is the typed note and is not censored.

Police cleared a 16-block area of Aspen, seen here in this file photo, Wednesday afternoon after two banks reported receiving bomb threats and packages wrapped in holiday paper. (Reuters)

Photo by Janet Urquhart/The Aspen Times
Aspen Assistant Police Chief Bill Linn offers additional details on the bomb threats that forced the evacuation of much of downtown Aspen Wednesday, during a press conference Thursday morning.

Aspen police officer Bill Linn peers from behind a wall at a sled containing wrapped packages left in an alleyway between Hopkins and Hyman Avenue in Downtown Aspen on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008. (Aspen Daily News ZACH ORNITZ )

A photo of the clear plastic boxes containing holiday wrapped packages and pizza boxes in the bottom of this black sled. (Aspen Police Department)

Bomb suspect killed self; blasted Rove, Cheney and Bush in note
Associated Press
Published January 1, 2009

ASPEN — A man who left bomb threats and homemade bombs around Aspen on New Year's Eve, shot and killed himself in his car a few hours after his threats cleared much of the resort town, Aspen Police said.

Assistant Aspen Police Chief Bill Linn said James Chester Blanning, 72, walked into two Aspen banks Wednesday afternoon and left packages wrapped in holiday paper along with notes saying the boxes contained bombs. The notes threatened "mass death" and demanded $60,000 cash, along with criticisms of President George Bush, Linn said.

The Aspen Times newspaper reported that Blanning left a typewritten note at the newspaper's offices Wednesday evening. The profanity-laced note, which appeared to match those Blanning left at banks, said "Aspen will pay a horrible price in blood" if his demands were not met.

(snip)

Sixteen blocks, nearly the entirety of downtown Aspen, was cleared of holiday revelers Wednesday afternoon. Linn said that police bomb squads detonated the bombs once the area was cleared, and that one of the packages created a fireball outside a Wells Fargo bank when police detonated it. No one was injured.

Linn said the bombs were dangerous, containing plastic bladders of gasoline, but Linn did not describe exactly how sophisticated they were.

Blanning, who grew up in Aspen, was identified by the Pitkin County sheriff on a surveillance tape from one of the banks. Linn said the suspect was well known to police and that the sheriff remembered Blanning from a 1994 suicide threat atop the Pitkin County Courthouse.



READ THE STORY IN "THE ASPEN TIMES" NEWSPAPER...
http://www.aspentimes.com/
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