Paratroopers land in prison yard

www.msnbc.msn.com...

CANON CITY, Colo. - A unit of 25 military paratroopers landed inside the perimeter of a state prison, but not to quell a riot or attempt some movie-script breakout.

The newspaper said the Army and Air Force denied knowledge of the episode. The Colorado National Guard did not return a call seeking comment.

The paratroopers, armed with exercise rifles that shoot rubber bullets

Exercisef rifles? WTH is that?
Rubber bullets?
Sounds like some sort of civilian suppression force if you ask me.
I have never been a member of the National Guard.
What are 'exercise rifles' and why are they doing exercises with live ammo in areas other then their firing range?

THis entire story is strange IMO.

Well, it wasn't live ammo, it was rubber bullets, which require a different sort of gun to fire than conventional live or blank rounds...

As for the landing, it was probably a mistake. Blown off course or something.

What was the weather like?

it's probably why no one is commenting. It's embarrassing for their "elite" troops to muck up like that.

Originally posted by stumason
Well, it wasn't live ammo, it was rubber bullets

Rubber bullets ARE live ammo.
IN my time in the military we never had 'exercise rifles' with 'rubber bullets'.
In training sometimes we would use our M-16A2 with BLANK ROUNDS, but I have never heard of 'exercise rifles'.
What are they?
Who were these paratroopers?

Could they have been foreign soldiers practicing on American soil?
IF they were National Guard then what are they doing being dropped off over anywhere other than their base of opperations or firing range?

This story is weird I tell ya.

No, they're not.

Rubber bullets are entirely different to live ammo. They don't tend to kill for starters

Here is a pic of a Policeman with a rubber bullet firing weapon:







The British Army have used Rubber bullets in NI for years. I would suspect that they had modified rifles to fire these, so they could realistically simulate combat, unlike with blanks, where someone has to tell you that your "dead" during exercise.

Originally posted by stumason
unlike with blanks, where someone has to tell you that your "dead" during exercise.

The first pic is of a shotgun that fires bean bags. Different animal there.
The second pic shows a bean bag shot gun AND another rifle.
A rifle that probalby fires these...



Rubber bullets.

Rubber bullets need gunpowder to fire, which means they are LIVE ROUNDS.

Rubber bullets kill.

Some types of rubber bullets used by police to restrain unruly protesters kill and maim too often to be considered a safe method of crowd control, new research concludes.

As far as using blanks for training.
Blanks are used in conjuncion with M.I.L.E.S. gear

Hmmm, seems that the UN is considering a ban on the 'non-leathal' 'non-live' rubber bullets.
www.scoop.co.nz...

UN Outlaws Use of Rubber Bullets in Kosovo And Consults on Possible Wider Ban

[edit on 15-7-2007 by 11Bravo]

Originally posted by stumason
As for the landing, it was probably a mistake. Blown off course or something.

it's probably why no one is commenting. It's embarrassing for their "elite" troops to muck up like that.

This is funny my old man (ex bootneck) used to work with an ex para - of course the joke was only two things fall out of the sky - Parras and bird (byproducts!). Of course the standard replay was at least we didn't invade the wrong bloody country!

Tell it to the marines... we've invaded the wrong country

Now_Then, I read the article in the link, and I don't find it to have been a mistake by the Marines at all. Any good bookie would ,could all the facts ever be known, give you about four to one that this was a message being sent to Spain.

"Many a thing said in jest...."

And as far as that goes, the same thing could apply to the prison jump. The warden could be a golf buddy to whoever planned the jump, and this was a way to show the prisoners that the military would show up quick if there was any more talk of a riot or whatever.

Intimidation by humorous misadventure.

It could have been a training exersize for an all out riot at the prison.

Paratroopers jump single file out of a door or tail of an aircraft hooked to a static line that opens their chut. The type of chute that leaves them very little control of their fall trajectory. They jump from 900 to 1200 feet to get them on the ground quickly and so they don't drift too far apart. To jump from a higher altitude the drift would be much wider. Now special ops or halo or other groups that jump from high altitudes could bunch up tight enough to land in a small area. The article doesnt say much. I don't know if anyone saw the aircraft or heard it but I don't think it was run of the mill paratroopers.
Kazi--ex 82nd airborne.

Originally posted by kazi
Kazi--ex 82nd airborne.

Thanks for the info fellow 11.
Like you said, the article doesnt say much, which leaves alot to speculate.

Are you familier with 'exercise' rifles or have you ever been issued rubber bullets?
Im a leg so I dont know much about jumping, but I do know what a halo is, high altitude low opening IIRC. Is that your guess on what happened here?


This is a strange story isnt it?

Same opinion.
Since all they say is that they landed in a cornfield and ''goofed'' we can't really tell what happened can we?
Isn't there another source that has the same article but with more info?

My only question is, if they actually did a HALO (Yes it's high altitude low opening), then how the hell did they get there. They would have to jump nearby to get there if I'm correct, or they had to ''skyswim'' there (don't know how it's called when you take in certain positions to move through the air lol) Unless the weather conditions were so crap that they got blown away by fierce winds, but I don't know if there's any potential landing place near that prison from which they got blown off course?

[edit on 16/7/07 by -0mega-]

Sounds like the paratroopers had a bit of a malfunction in their landing back to basic training & try it again

No--Halio could do it. They could come in night or day and you wouldn't hear their aircraft at 30,000 ft with their engines revd down. Even in daylight you probably wouldn,t see them unless you just happen to be looking up--and then they would swoop in one about twenty feet above the other and all land within ten yards of each other. At night with night vision, forget it, you'll know they're there when the killing starts. I sure wish there was more to the article.

Most news services used the Rocky Mountain News as their original source material, but the Colorado Springs Gazette posted their own original report, with slight variations. It says they wouldn't to identify their unit, and that they meant to land at the nearby airport.

The paratroopers identified themselves as being with the Department of Defense, but wouldn’t tell prison staff which branch they were with.

The paratroopers said “they landed there accidentally. They got blown off-course,” Sanguinetti said. They said they meant to land at the county airport, about three miles to the east. Trucks arrived within a half-hour to pick up the troopers, she said.

Using a map of the area, you can see the prison system on the left, and the airport on the right. The two appear to be about 6000 feet apart as the crow flies, and the only thing between them is a large deep gorge.

A topographical map shows the mountain area is at about 5400 ft. the gorge is over 100 feet deep. If I got off course a little in the twilight, (4:50 am) I wouldn't want to wind up in that gorge. I'd do whatever it took to get the group away from that gorge.

At that point it doesn't matter whos fault it is for being off course. It could be anything from wind change, pilot error, jump master error, jump team leader, etc. This article can give you some idea of how difficult a HALO jump is, if you care to look.

Anyway, stepping back and looking at the articles, it seems like 25 DOD people jumping into a large prison system at night to stop some trouble doesn't make sense. They would have an impact on a rebellion at a large prison system, but it would be a tough go of it. Especially with non-leathal weapons.

It seems more likely that with practice, 25 specialized people could jump into rugged 5500 ft. high mountain terrain and quickly take over a small airport using non-lethal force without anyone noticing for awhile.

Wonder where they are training for? Pakistan border area maybe?

[edit on 7/16/07 by makeitso]

Originally posted by 11Bravo
Are you familier with 'exercise' rifles or have you ever been issued rubber bullets?
Im a leg so I dont know much about jumping, but I do know what a halo is, high altitude low opening IIRC. Is that your guess on what happened here?


This is a strange story isnt it?

Don't know anything about exercise rifle, except to say that it was an exercise and the author pretty much called it the exericise rifles since he does not expect paratroopers to be armed with real rifles.

O yeah, I also like to include that these days, they included paintball and rubber bullets to imitate as real as possible instead of just using blank rounds.

I know i am late on this and i was going to comment when the thread was started early on, because the original story I read had these guys as possibly national guardsmen.

But there is still confusion as to who they were and they were heavily armed, according to the prison guards they had DOD identification and identified themselves as employees, not military employees or military id.

www.cnn.com...

Originally posted by 11Bravo

Im a leg so I dont know much about jumping.

Don't worry, we have the utmost respect for legs. They have to clean up behind us.

If God woulda wanted me to fly he woulda gave me wings.

Thanks for all the info and filling out the thread.
Nice information in the CNN article phinubian linked to as well.
In summary. ..

"Military officials said 25 heavily armed parachutists...."

Heavily armed? What happened to 'training rifles with rubber bullets'?

"Those were Special Operations Command forces conducting routine training," Army Col. Hans Bush, a spokesman for the command at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, said Monday

Routine training is twilight HALOs into civilian areas?
What is this guy doing answering questions in Florida?
This happened in Colorado. Seems odd for some Colonal in Florida to comment on it.

Guards who stopped the men and asked for identification were presented with documents that identified them only as Defense Department employees

Strange.
So, why didnt the guards assume they were under attack?

Guards on duty, who are trained to watch the skies following a helicopter escape in 1989 from a prison near Ordway, Colorado, held their fire after noticing the parachutists were soldiers

At what point did they notice these guys were soldiers?
Because they were dressed in fatigues and fell from the sky?
Because they had rubber bullets?
Im sure these guys didnt have any patches on, and they refused to identify themselfs, so how exactly would you know they are soldiers?

I would think the prison guards would be leary of 'Heavily armed parachutists' that land in there yard and have no patches or military affiliation but do happen to have official looking DOD paperwork that "identified them only as DOD employees".
What does that mean? No name, no picture, just a Barcode and a DOD badge?
Its weird man.

And whats up with the rubber bullets?
Why, if they are training for oversees like you suggested, why would they use rubber bullets?

I think they were possibly foreign troops training for civillian supression, either here or abroad.

I dont know, but its fun to speculate sometimes.

11Bravo
Routine training is twilight HALOs into civilian areas?

Ummm, aaahhh, Weeellll you see - Hey! Didya notice what a pretty day it is? How 'bout them Red Sox this year. Ya wanna beer? Lalalallaalla

What is this guy doing answering questions in Florida?
This happened in Colorado. Seems odd for some Colonal in Florida to comment on it.

Hellooo. McFly. Centcom is run from Florida.

Phhfft. Legs.

And whats up with the rubber bullets?
Why, if they are training for oversees like you suggested, why would they use rubber bullets?

Lets say you had a friend who runs a country, but he wasn't being as helpful handing over some people you really wanted to get your hands on. You can't really jump into his country to do a snatch uninvited and killing everyone in sight without some rather unfriendly and very public backlash now can you? Best thing to do is leave bruised but unharmed, confused people. You especially don't wanna kill the one you want to talk to.

(I don't know what happened General. One minute I was walking to the control tower, and the next moment I woke up here in the loo with some bruised ribs. Didn't see anything but a glimpse of some guy in black.)

I think they were possibly foreign troops training

Thats quite possible. Its not uncommon for a couple of them to be foreign. For example, we had a Korean "Rock Army" soldier for awhile. Good soldier. Tough as nails. He beat the crap out of one of the bigger guys for telling the joke about naming people by droping pots and pans. Funny the little things you remember sometimes. Haven't thought about him in many long time..



[edit on 7/18/07 by makeitso]