The Durango Police Department has not yet identified a suspect in Tuesday’s bomb threat at Holiday Inn & Suites, which closed U.S. Highway 160 for more than two hours in west Durango.
A man called the hotel shortly after 2:30 p.m. using a “spoof” phone number – a tactic of changing the number seen on a caller ID – making it difficult to trace, said Cmdr. Ray Shupe, with the police department.
More specifically, the caller used an app to mask the phone number, he said.
Shupe said the suspect called the hotel twice to report a bomb in the building.
“The threat was that it (the bomb) was going to go off in 10 minutes,” he said. “Then, he called back to say, ‘No, you have 20 minutes.’”
Officers evacuated the hotel and went room-to-room to clear the building, closing U.S. Highway 160 between Camino del Rio and Wildcat Canyon.
Traffic was rerouted onto County Road 210 until the highway reopened at 5:13 p.m.
Durango Fire Protection District, La Plata County Sheriff’s Office and Colorado State Patrol assisted with the investigation. The Farmington Police Department Bomb Squad was placed on standby.
Law enforcement officers did not find anything suspicious during their sweep of the building.
Bomb threats are not completely uncommon in Durango, Shupe said.
“We probably deal with two or three a year, but a lot of the time they’re at schools,” he said. “We want to thank the public for their patience and support yesterday.”
mrupani@durangoherald.com