Editorial: FBI’s response is swift, timely

Friday, Feb. 20, 1998 | 10:55 a.m.

There's not enough gratitude our community can show to the FBI's Las Vegas office for its continuing service to Nevadans and their visitors. The FBI's work over the past two days is a good example of the service provided by the highly respected federal agency.

On Wednesday night, within 12 hours of receiving a tip, the FBI arrested two individuals suspected of possessing the dangerous biological agent anthrax. The FBI caught them as they were possibly about to test the deadly agent at a medical center in Henderson. "Our primary concern in this was the safety of the community," Bobby Siller, special agent in charge of the Las Vegas FBI office, said Thursday.

Although details are still sketchy, the FBI criminal complaint filed against Larry Wayne Harris and William Job Leavitt Jr. paints a disturbing picture, especially of Harris' past. Harris currently is on probation after a 1995 felony conviction for fraudulently obtaining bubonic plague toxins. Harris was picked up in May 1995 with three vials of freeze-dried bubonic plague toxins in Ohio. At his sentencing in April 1997, Harris received 18 months of probation and was ordered to perform 200 hours of community service. The FBI also contends that in the summer of 1997 Harris told a group of plans to place a "globe" of bubonic plague toxins in a New York subway station, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths. Harris, according to the FBI, is a self-admitted member of the Aryan Nations.

The FBI complaint also alleges a chilling encounter Wednesday that an unidentified man had with Leavitt and Harris at a local hotel-casino. According to the complaint, Harris had showed the individual a vial and said it was anthrax, adding there was enough there to "wipe out the city." Whether or not he was just blowing smoke, we won't know until tests are completed.

No one knows for certain what Harris and Leavitt would have ended up doing with the materials. What is certain is that the FBI's swift and aggressive action might have averted a potentially life-threatening disaster from harming our community.