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Roughly a month after a would-be assassin attempted to kill Donald Trump, the former president and current GOP presidential candidate is planning to visit Aspen on Aug. 10.
Local law enforcement has already told the Aspen Daily News they are coordinating with the U.S. Secret Service for a VIP visit. For a town of 6,000 year-round residents, cooperating on security for a presidential candidate may seem like a tall order. But Aspen’s law enforcement officers are accustomed to high-profile visits, and they never work alone.
Roughly a month before big-name events or visits from dignitaries, Aspen Police Sgt. Rick Magnuson reaches out to the Colorado Information Analysis Center, a state-owned center outside of Denver and requests a document called a “threat check.” The report, along with continued communication during events, keeps Aspen connected to a nationwide web of information sharing and threat assessment from dozens of agencies and personal security teams.
“It is a small community, but your events are very large,” said Kelsey Gomez-Fowers, an intelligence analyst at the center.
Established in 2001, the CIAC is one of 80 “fusion centers” or “watch centers” in a national network of state-operated nodes that receive, organize and disseminate information on potential security threats like terrorist attacks between federal agencies and local entities. States began establishing their fusion centers following the 9/11 attacks in New York City, when security agencies realized they needed to improve their collective awareness of major security threats. While some states have multiple fusion centers, the CIAC is the only one in Colorado.
“We want to be a central agency where all the information can go,” Gomez-Fowers said. “That way there’s nothing accidentally slipping through the cracks — information going to one area when it really should have gone to another.”
Gomez-Fowers said the CIAC is not an “investigative agency,” meaning it doesn’t discover new security threats or act to stop threats it learns about. The CIAC is an informational node, making sure the right knowledge gets to the right people.
In the last year, Gomez-Fowers said the CIAC has produced threat checks for Aspen Ideas Festival, Aspen Security Forum, JAS June Experience, Aspen Music Festival and the Palm Tree Music Festival. Gomez-Fowers drove to Aspen from the center’s office in Lakewood to personally support security services at the Aspen Security Forum.
“I’m in contact with the analysts at the watch center, and they’re getting calls from law enforcement or the Department of Homeland Security about a potential threat that we should be aware of,” Gomez-Fowers said. “So by having me on site, I can communicate that directly with [Aspen Police Department] or Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office and the Aspen Institute security personnel.”
Three senators, the secretaries of state, the national security advisor, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Google executive, the vice chair of Mastercard and a former British intelligence chief all graced the same stage at the Aspen Meadows Resort on the final day of the security forum.
“We reached out to Aspen and said, ‘because of the amount of attendees and the dignitaries that are going to be there, you might benefit from having a CIAC analyst on-site,'” Gomez-Fowers said.
The CIAC even keeps tabs on officials and dignitaries during their ski trips, Gomez-Fowers said.
“Generally, if they're traveling, even for recreational purposes, we will sometimes be notified that a dignitary is coming,” Gomez-Fowers said.
For Magnuson, coordinating security for high-profile events is a routine part of the job. Magnuson said arranging motorcades for visiting dignitaries can be logistically complicated, but big-name events don’t usually strain police resources.
“It’s not a huge drain on our staff,” Magnuson said. “I manage our dignitary visits, and I just stay on-call all that time, so for me it’s a little extra, but for our patrol officers, it doesn’t affect them too much.”
Magnuson said APD can typically staff big events like Ideas Fest or Food & Wine without making officers work much overtime.
He noted that musical events are easier to handle than political ones. Although CIAC prepares threat checks for concerts and festivals, Magnuson said patrol officers take care of those events.
So far, Magnuson said he can’t recall any serious threats he has addressed in connection with high-profile events.
Gomez-Fowers couldn’t provide any instances of recent threats the center has identified around Aspen events. She said Magnuson remains in constant contact with the watch center.
“[(Magunson's) always keeping us up to date and requesting threat checks in advance,” Gomez-Fowers said. “If we find something or he finds something, or we just need a little more information, it's very quick.”