Black Hawk ops target Denver

Residents in downtown Denver saw quite a show last night as squadrons of black military helicopters hovered over the city until nearly 11 p.m., conducting exercises that were originally reported to be tied to the Democratic National Convention.


While the commotion was taking place last evening, The Rocky Mountain News published an article with the title “Choppers are training for convention,” a report that cited the Denver police department as saying that the U.S. Department of Justice was maneuvering for the upcoming convention in Denver.


But that angle quickly disappeared, replaced with today’s claim by the Rocky that the exercise was a routine practice for the “global war on terrorism,” not in preparation for the August convention.


Either way, countless numbers of residents called the police department and the city’s 311 line last night wondering why their neighborhoods sounded like a war zone.


Similar helicopters were also spotted over Lakewood, a suburb west of Denver last week, during afternoon hours.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.