CHEYENNE — Residents in Wyoming’s capital city will likely never know what was in the mysterious package left at Gate 1 of F.E. Warren Air Force Base last month that evacuated part of the base, the surrounding neighborhood and the state Capitol building.
An initial evacuation notice went out the morning of April 16 when the package was discovered, initially calling for anyone within a mile east of the base to leave immediately.
The Laramie County Emergency Management notification was revised a short time later to reduce that perimeter to 1,850 feet from the base, but not before Gov. Mark Gordon, two of Wyoming’s other top five elected officials and the rest of the Capitol had been evacuated.
In a response to a Cowboy State Daily follow-up request to the Air Force’s 90th Missile Wing Public Affairs department requesting more information about the incident, the agency provided few details.
“It was determined that the package did not pose an active threat to the installation or surrounding community, and no further information with the specific details regarding the package have been released,” the statement says.
The request for more information included whether the package represented a viable threat, contained explosives or if there were any leads or suspects who left it at the gate.
“There is no active investigation at this time,” the statement adds.
‘I Want To Know …’
In the meantime, those impacted by the evacuation and response at the time want more details about what happened that day and if it was an isolated incident.
David Pope was one of the people evacuated from the Capitol, ushered out with the governor and the rest of the Wyoming Stable Token Commission who were meeting there.
His first thought that day was for his granddaughter, who attends Pioneer Peak Elementary School near F.E. Warren that was put on lockdown during the package response.
“When I prioritize my life and who and what I’m concerned with, at the top of that list are my wife, my son and my grandchildren — and of course my daughter-in-law,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday.
“I want to know and have confidence that when my granddaughter goes to school that close to a military installation, that she’s safe,” he said.
Pope said he doesn’t expect the folks at F.E. Warran to jeopardize the base or national security in any way. But he also would like some information to know his family is in a safe spot.
“I’d like to know whether that was a threat or could be a threat in the future,” Pope said. “That is important to me. That said, I would never want to expose any national security issues in any way.”
He said he’d like to know the progression of the potential threat, because it seemed to go from more serious with a 1-mile evacuation that was reduced to 1,850 feet, “then all of the sudden it wasn’t an issue.”
“What was the tree (progression) for that?” Pope asked. “It seemed like it was an ongoing threat for at least a few hours, so why now do they say it wasn’t? … Those types of questions run through my mind.”
‘I Went For A Walk …'
The response to the package that day was so quick that it caught local resident Ken Eppich off-guard.
He lives just a couple of houses down from the base and was on his morning walk when the package was found. When he tried to walk home, the road was blocked and he wasn’t allowed back to his house.
“I went for a walk about 10 minutes to 9 around the park, then came back down this way (along Randall Avenue) and seen all the police cars down here,” he told Cowboy State Daily at the time while waiting patiently at the intersection of Randall and McComb avenues.
“It was all blocked and I found out they won’t let me back to my house,” he said, adding that he was grateful for a Laramie County Sheriff’s Office deputy nearby who gave him a bottle of water while he waited.
In talking with the deputy, Eppich said he was told that “somebody left something at the visitor center; they found it, then they sent the robot in.
“Then they opened the lid to the robot and looked inside,” Eppich continued. “That’s when they moved (the perimeter) out back here.”
Pope said he also wants to know if a suspect or suspects in leaving the package have ever been identified. If so, were they charged with any type of crime?
“Yeah, I’d kind of like to know,” he said.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
