30.05 Ricin Poisoned Letters Sent to New York Mayor Bloomberg - CNN
MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti) - Two letters containing deadly poison ricin were sent to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg over the past weekend, CNN reported on Wednesday.
CNN said citing New York deputy police commissioner Paul Browne that the letters contained threat to the mayor mentioning his position toward gun laws. Bloomberg is an outspoken critic of current gun laws.
The letter obviously, referred to our anti-gun efforts but there's 12,000 people [who] are going to get killed this year with guns and 19,000 that are going to commit suicide with guns, and we're not going to walk away from those efforts, CNN quoted Bloomberg as saying.
The first letter addressed to the mayor was opened by emergency service workers at the city governments mail facility on Friday and the second was opened by Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which is a national, bipartisan coalition of mayors co-founded in 2006 by Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.
According to Browne, people who opened the first letter showed minor symptoms of ricin exposure, but the symptoms have since subsided. Glaze showed no symptoms of ricin exposure at all. Ricin is made from castor beans and can kill within 36 hours.
The two letters bore the same postmark and neither of them was sent from New York or Washington, CNN reported.
Last month the US capital was on high alert after law enforcement authorities said a letter sent to US President Barack Obama tested positive for ricin and that suspicious packages had been removed from the US Senate.
In 2004, the US Senate building was shut down for several days after ricin was discovered in a letter sent to a senator from Tennessee, and shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, letters containing anthrax spores were sent to media outlets and two senators.
