Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

2415 Mary Boedecker contacts Dawn Mock. The ballroom is an empty mess.

Clean-up crew and a dozen security guards are it.

2425 Reb Butterworth and his force in intelElway Stadium dash for their trucks and roll the short distance to the convention center.

Unloading and setting up a picket looks as though it were an illustration from the Army manual. Twenty state troopers and CBI detectives enter exhibition hall and move the night watchmen aside.

“Now hear this,” Butterworth said to the empty ballroom. “This facility is hereby seized under Colorado statute six-oh four-A as a clear and present danger to public safety, and other crimes.”

breaking story breaking story breaking story

“We take you now to our Denver affiliate. Don, are you there?” “Yes,

this is Don Fender, CNN, Denver. In the late hours of last night and

the early hours of this morning, Colorado state troopers and the

Colorado National Guard carried out a lightning raid intercepting a

gun-running scheme. A second task force seized the Colorado convention

center where the national AMERIGUN conclave was being held.” “Can you

tell us—“

“The operation apparently depended on secrecy and speed. Details are very slow coming in ...”

breaking story breaking story breaking story

“... interrupt this program to bring you a breaking story from Denver.”

“This is Anita McG lore MS NBC Denver. The cock has crowed and Denver citizens are waking up this morning to the electrifying news of a major gun bust and the closure of the AMERIGUN convention. Governor Quinn Patrick O’Connell has scheduled a news conference for one o’clock this afternoon, Rocky Mountain time. It will be held at the historic Brown Palace Hotel.”

Rocky Mountain News GOVERNOR QUINN PADLOCKS ARMS

SHOW

Denver Post MAJOR ARMS CACHE RAIDED

USA Today TWO KILLED IN ARMS RAID. A PAIR OF BROTHERS,

IDENTIFIED AS DRIVERS, DIE IN SHOOTOUT

New York Times (See story inside, section A, page 31)

A truckload of assault weapons was captured by the Colorado State Patrol and a small unit of the Colorado National Guard. Two drivers were killed in the operation and several hundred guns recovered.

New York Post GUN MUGGERS MUGGED

The “historic” Brown Palace buzzed with anticipation. Its atrium lobby soared nine stories to a glass roof which held an American flag four stories long.

By one o’clock some sixty print journalists and a dozen camera crews had assembled, each with their own rumors.

Deadly silence. One could hear people parting as Governor O’Connell made his way to the rostrum. A smattering of applause. A half dozen journalists came to their feet cheering. Now, sustained applause as Quinn fooled with the microphone.

“First, I want to sing you all a little song,” Quinn opened. “I’ve never been involved in a press conference of this magnitude, and it’s a little frightening. Half of you I don’t know, so please give your name and organization. We okay with that? Thank you.”

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“.. . switch you now to a press conference at the historic

Brown Palace Hotel in downtown Denver.”

Announcer in a whisper: “.. . that is Governor O’Connell at the

rostrum. The three people sitting at his left are identified as Adjutant General Butterworth, commander of the Colorado National Guard, Colonel Yancey Hawke, chief of the Colorado troopers, and Dr. Dawn Mock, head of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, a well-known figure in law enforcement circles.”

Quinn held up and waved a sheet of paper. “You all have received a rap sheet like this. It brings us up to an hour ago, noon. Questions?”

“Vernon Creech, Rocky.”

“Hi, Vern, I thought you’d never ask.”

“Governor,” Creech went on, “the rap sheet says your initial tip was anonymous. Are you saying, sir, that it wasn’t someone in the federal government or that you didn’t have assistance of the FBI or BATF?”

“First, we aren’t going to blow our sources. Second, the operation is still going on, and third, we might want to use the same sources again in the future. It was my belief that the entire AMERIGUN invasion of Denver was meant to be as intimidation, a warning about future anti-gun legislation. If any of you listened to the rhetoric at the convention, you’ll understand my drift. I considered it a crude attempt to bully Colorado out of its sovereign rights. This was a state operation from beginning to end. My colleagues and I felt we could only be successful if we held the secret to just a few people. I determined that we had sufficient state forces to do the job. The weapons are Canadian—made VEC--44’s of Belgium origin and were smuggled into Wisconsin via the Great Lakes. Apparently, the drivers, the Jensen brothers, had been running contraband for several years.”

“There must have been middlemen, sir,” Creech said, not yet sitting down.

“The manufacturer, a Roy Sedgewick of Toronto, has disappeared. Friehoff, whose warehouse was the drop spot, has been placed under arrest, and we also arrested five weapons dealers working from the exhibition tables.”

“Governor,” Chita Mendez of the Pueblo Chieftain said. “It sounds like no officials of AMERIGUN were involved.”

“Just one,” Quinn answered, “Senator Richard Darling of Wisconsin.”

BLAM

breaking news breaking news breaking news

“Governor O’Connell has named Senator Darling of Wisconsin as the chief operator of a longstanding smuggling ring from Canada. Apprehended at the Denver International Airport, the senator has vociferously claimed his innocence. We switch you now to the Denver International ...”

When the press conference regained its sanity, Len Sanders of the New

York Times threw the question:

“Did you use computer surveillance, and how did you follow the weapons from Wisconsin to Denver?”

“Yes, we used computers. Our entire operation was covered by appropriate court warrants. Moreover, we took abnormal caution to see that there were no casualties. The two Jensen brothers were apparently killed by their own gunfire. I’m not totally free to give you the method we used to trail the weapons to Colorado.” “Can we have some more dope on the VEC--44’s?” Quinn held up the assault gun. “Here she is. It’s a 9mm, about .38 caliber, fully automatic machine pistol using thirty five round clips. She only weighs three pounds, and the barrel is a few inches. You couldn’t hit a bull in the ass at twenty feet with one of these little buggers. They are designed to be in close and personal killers particularly for street gangs and burglars.” “What is the current status of the operation, Governor?” “Well, let’s see. Three thousand VEC-44’s have been logged and impounded. Some five or six hundred weapons were due to be delivered to buyers last night. They are part of the cache. The dealers have been taken into custody. More important, we have a search-and-seizure warrant in effect. Our teams are in the convention center checking all the weapon ID numbers. So far we have turned up well over a hundred laundered guns. In addition, a dozen exhibitors are wanted by police elsewhere.”

“What you going to do with all these weapons, Governor?”

“Melt them down for sewer lid covers. Let me say that any exhibitor selling legitimate material can have it returned by merely going to the Exhibition Desk.”