YOUR AD HERE »

Dennis Collins: Sheriff’s Office was right

To the editor:

I have about heard it all now. I have been watching this thing in the news about the Moffat County Sheriff shutting down the courthouse, etc., about what was thought to be a possible bomb.

As usual, someone didn’t like it, and starts bad mouthing the sheriff behind his back. Isn’t it wonderful how you can do that with some cute little Internet name to cover you?



I am finding it hard to believe the newspaper even made it an issue for you all to vote on.

Many years ago, a young police officer in another town was walking through the airport when a janitor told him there was a strange box left in the rest room.



The officer went in and looked at this 6-by-4-by-3 inch aluminum box, wrapped in electrical tape. It looked a lot like an electrician’s toolbox.

On the other side of the cinderblock wall was the baggage area with hundreds of people waiting for baggage and renting cars.

If the box was a bomb, it would blow down the wall and hurt or kill a great many people.

The officer took the box, placed it inside his coat and walked outside and into the parking lot with it.

A local town with a bomb squad sent their people over to look at the box. The box had one pound of C-4 explosive in it with a failed ignition device. Yep, it was real, and this was way before Sept. 11, 2001.

So, now lets return to Craig. So 48 percent of you don’t like what your Sheriff did. Well, too bad. He did what you hired him for, folks.

What if it had been real? How many of you 48 percent know someone working in the courthouse? How would you have enjoyed spending your day at their funeral had the Sheriff decided to ignore the threat? How many of you would have voted for him next election?

Just because Craig is small-town America is no reason to decide it couldn’t happen there. As a matter of fact, a terrorist’s mission in life is to “disrupt” your normal flow of life. To make you afraid to go and live your life normally. If I were a terrorist, I think blowing up a building in a small town would beat doing it in a big town.

There are many more small towns than big ones, so why wouldn’t I want every small Craig-like town in America to worry about it being them next?

Next time it happens, one of you 48 percent need to come down and volunteer to open the box.

And before you start mouthing off about it, yes, I am a personal friend of Sheriff Tim Jantz. And I am very proud and fortunate to be.

Dennis Collins


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

Readers around Craig and Moffat County make the Craig Press’ work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.