LV police on alert for more stolen explosives

Kim Smith

Wednesday, Dec. 29, 1999 | 11 a.m.

Las Vegas law enforcement officials have been alerted to another explosives theft, this time 400 miles away in Fresno, Calif.

Fresno Police Lt. Andy Hall said someone stole about 125 pounds of dynamite and a plastics explosive, plus 75 pounds of gunpowder from a remote police bunker between Friday and Monday night.

The theft has prompted police officials to increase staffing, particularly at locations that could be potential targets, such as power plants, Hall said.

While 100 pounds of explosives could prove disastrous when used by someone with explosives knowledge, the thieves could have taken much more, Hall said. What they took could easily fit in the trunk of a car.

"They left quite a bit behind. They left other explosives behind that is just as powerful or more powerful and they left behind the detonators," Hall said. "Some of the evidence points to a lack of sophistication and knowledge. They may be better burglars than they are explosives experts."

Another bunker was broken into a few months ago in Tuolumne County north of Fresno, Hall said. In that incident, about 200 pounds of dynamite were stolen.

It's too soon to tell if the incidents are related, Hall said.

With talk of the New Year sparking a fight between good and evil or a New World Order, tensions are high throughout the country, Hall said.

"I don't know if we have a hotbed of militias in Fresno County, but there are certainly militias in the state and that is a concern," Hall said.

Las Vegas FBI Special Agent Joe Dickey said his office is keeping in touch with field officers in California.

While information about such thefts are normally disseminated to the various law enforcement agencies in the region, Dickey said "since we are operating at a heightened state of awareness it's making us more cognizant of what's going on."

Dickey said the general public also needs to be extra vigilant and report suspicious activity.

"But, this could have been a theft for profit," Dickey cautioned. "It's definitely curious timing, but it doesn't necessarily mean a terrorist act."

Meanwhile, in Arizona, authorities are still tracking down leads in the theft two weeks ago of 1,000 pounds of explosives from a quarry near Ashfork in the northern part of the state.

More than 100 tips have been investigated so far, but no "strong leads" have been developed yet, Sam Whitted, chief deputy of the Coconino County Sheriff's Office, said.

According to authorities, 750 pounds of fuel-soaked ammonium nitrate and 250 pounds of dynamite were reported missing from the M.C. Sandstone Quarry on Dec. 16. Blasting caps and detonators were also taken.

The ammonium nitrate was stored in 50-pound bags inside locked magazines at the quarry. Authorities have declined to comment on how the thief or thieves gained access to the magazines.

Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols used 4,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, killing 168 people.

Larry Bettendorf, a spokesman for the Phoenix Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said more than one dozen ATF agents, deputies and FBI agents have been working on the case nonstop.

At this point, Bettendorf said, investigators aren't ruling out the possibility that the timing of the theft -- two weeks before New Year's Eve -- is a coincidence.

One possibility is that the items were stolen not by terrorists, but by a competing quarry, of which there are many in that area, Bettendorf said.

Whitted said that just as in any criminal case, investigators are starting inside the bull's-eye and slowly widening their circle. The bull's-eye in this case would be quarry employees, he said.

"Everyone is apprehensive about the New Year and the speculations going out," Whitted said. "The computer issues and the people issues are in the back of everyone's head, but we haven't received any specific threats."

Las Vegas ATF officials have said they are operating in a heightened state of awareness and are sharing information with other law enforcement agencies.

Anyone with information on the explosives is asked to call the Coconino County Sheriff's Office at 1-800-338-7888 or the ATF at 1-888-ATF-BOMB. Authorities are offering up to $10,000 for information that leads to the recovery of the explosives.

"We still have a lot of leads to follow," Bettendorf said. "We're still getting information in and we'll follow the leads to wherever they go."