Heavily armed man found dead at popular Colorado amusement park

October 31, 2023 12:43 AM

A man was found dead in a bathroom at a popular Colorado amusement park surrounded by explosives, guns, and ammunition, police said Monday.

Authorities are investigating whether 20-year-old Diego Medina committed suicide instead of launching an attack “of devastating proportions.”

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Amusement Park Dead Suspect — FILE – People ride the Giant Canyon Swing at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park in Glenwood Springs, Colo., June 10, 2011. A heavily armed man killed himself rather than carry out an apparent plan to shoot up the mountaintop amusement park in Colorado, authorities said Monday, Oct. 30, 2023. (Christopher Tomlinson/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel via AP, File)

Medina is believed to have broken into Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park while it was closed, where police say he was armed with an AR-style rifle, a handgun, and explosives, some of which proved later to be fake.

“While this investigation is still ongoing and very active, it is important to realize that given the amount of weaponry, ammunition, and explosive devices found, the suspect could have implemented an attack of devastating proportions upon our community and first responders,” the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Medina, found dead in a woman’s bathroom Saturday morning while maintenance workers were getting ready to open the park, was wearing black tactical gear displaying “patches and emblems that gave the appearance of being associated with law enforcement,” body armor, and “what appeared to be a ballistic helmet,” the sheriff’s office said.

The message, “I am not a killer, I just wanted to get into the caves,” was written on a wall of the bathroom, though Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario could not say whether Medina had written it.

The park was likely to be crowded on a fall weekend during hunting season when people were keen to view the leaves changing colors, the sheriff said. He also noted that because of the extreme elevation of the park, which often requires a gondola to reach, emergency operations in getting anyone wounded to a hospital would have been extremely difficult.

“We had the potential for something heinous and gruesome to happen in this community, and we were fortunate that it did not occur, but it certainly, for lack of a better term, took away the innocence of our community,” Vallario added, per the Denver Post.

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The guns found around Medina had no serial numbers, leaving them untraceable, authorities said. During their preliminary investigation, no criminal record for Medina was found.

Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park is “America’s only mountaintop theme park,” its site reads, with it lying “7,100 feet above sea level” on top of Glenwood Springs.