NYPD: Notes to Obama, Mayor Bloomberg had gun threats
NEW YORK (AP) — The Secret Service said Thursday that a suspicious letter addressed to President Barack Obama and similar to ricin-laced ones sent to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been intercepted by a White House mail screening facility...
NEW YORK (AP) — The Secret Service said Thursday that a suspicious letter addressed to President Barack Obama and similar to ricin-laced ones sent to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been intercepted by a White House mail screening facility.
The letter has been turned over to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force for testing and investigation.
It was unclear precisely how the letter, which was intercepted Wednesday by the White House facility, was similar to letters laced with the poison ricin and addressed to Bloomberg. The screening facility is located away from the White House complex.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday that Obama was aware of the letter addressed to him.
New York Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the letters addressed to Bloomberg apparently came from the same machine and contained an oily pinkish-orange substance. It wasn’t clear if the missive to Obama contained the same substance.
The body of the letter was addressed to “you” and referenced the gun law debate. Kelly said the letters say, in so many words: “Anyone who comes for my guns will be shot in the face.” He refused to quote directly from the letters, saying he didn’t want to do the author’s bidding.
Two threatening letters postmarked in Louisiana and containing traces of the deadly poison ricin were sent to Bloomberg in New York and to his gun-control group in Washington, officials said.
The anonymous letters sent to Bloomberg were opened in New York on Friday at the city’s mail facility in Manhattan and in Washington on Sunday at an office used by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the nonprofit started by Bloomberg, police said.
Testing indicated the presence of ricin in both letters.
Kelly would not comment on the origin of the letter.The postal workers’ union, citing information it got in a Postal Service briefing, said the letters bore a Shreveport, Louisiana, postmark.
Louisiana State Police spokeswoman Julie Lewis said state authorities have deferred to the FBI and have not opened an investigation. The Shreveport postal center handles mail from Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, so the letter might have come from any of those states, Lewis said.
The mayor didn’t respond to questions about the letters Thursday morning as he arrived for and left a speech to the Real Estate Board of New York.
The billionaire mayor has emerged as one of the most potent U.S. gun-control advocates, able to press his case with both his public position and his private money.
The people who initially came into contact with the letters showed no symptoms of exposure to the poison, but three officers who later examined the New York letter experienced minor symptoms that have since abated, police said.
The letters were the latest in a string of toxin-laced missives. In Washington state, a 37-year-old was charged last week with threatening to kill a federal judge in a letter that contained ricin. About a month earlier, letters containing the substance were addressed to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a Mississippi judge. A Mississippi man was arrested in that case.
___
Associated Press Writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
More About:Politics
You Might Like
