Personal Injury Law

Mysterious White Powder Also Sent To Harvard's Dershowitz

By Jane Akre

New York City police says that white powder mailed to the Wall Street Journal's New York headquarters was probably flour. The FBI plans further investigation of the envelopes which bears a postmark of Knoxville, Tennessee.

Wednesday Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz received a similar envelope with white powder. Inside was a greeting card that said THANKS in jagged yellow capital letters, according to the Wall Street Journal. That white substance is also being tested.  Dershowitz recently published an opinion piece in the WSJ on January 2 which justifies Israel's actions in Gaza.

In recent months, the FBI has been investigating a strong of envelope mailing - all containing mysterious white powder. They've all turned out to be hoaxes.

The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday received more than a dozen identical white envelopes. They all contained white powder and were addressed in capital letters as was the envelope sent to Mr. Dershowitz.

Several floors were evacuated in the lower Manhattan buildings, including the floors where executives and publishers work. Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Dow Jones & Co., also has an office on the executive floors.  Three of the envelopes were opened.  It will take several days to positively confirm the contents of the envelopes.

Quoting the WSJ Health Blog: 

"Update 2: We 12th floor folks went back to work on other things, but Shira Ovide, a media reporter here who's on the story, tells us that the police official overseeing the incident said health risk was limited to the people who opened the envelopes. They have been checked out by medical personnel and sent home. He said preliminary field testing will be conducted today on the powder, but it will be several days before final lab results can confirm whether the substance is toxic.

Dozens of police, fire and health officials are still roaming around. The areas where the suspicious mail was opened have been quarantined and slated for decontamination. Air ventilation systems have been turned off as a precaution. We assumed so, considering it got pretty stuffy on our floor."

Everyone was reported to be fine, and they even got the paper out on time. 

In 2001, mail with white powder later determined to be anthrax, was sent to media outlets and killed five people. 

More background can be found in Wednesday's story.  #

Full post as published by InjuryBoard on January 22, 2009 (boomark / email).