Local FBI to shift focus on terrorism

Jace Radke

Tuesday, July 9, 2002 | 10:56 a.m.

The FBI is beefing up Nevada's Joint Terrorism Task Force by shifting agents from other areas, including violent crimes and drugs.

The move is the first phase of a restructuring plan to bring the local office in compliance with the new priorities set by FBI Director Robert Mueller in May.

"I think people expect this of us," said Ellen Knowlton, special agent in charge of the Las Vegas FBI office. "We're not walking away from any of our other responsibilities, we're economizing our resources so that we can do our job better."

Protecting the United States from terrorism, foreign intelligence operations, espionage and cyber-based attacks are now the top priorities for the FBI, Knowlton said at a news conference Monday.

To better accomplish these goals Knowlton has split the Joint Terrorism Task Force and counterintelligence into separate squads.

Special Agent George Handley will supervise seven FBI agents in the task force, as well as representatives from other law enforcement agencies including Metro Police, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the Secret Service, U.S. Customs and Immigration and Naturalization.

"The people on the task force will be fully immersed," Handley said. "This isn't going to be them coming to a meeting for a cup of coffee and going home."

The newly formatted task force will go into effect on Monday, and the U.S. Attorney's office will continue to prosecute any cases that come from the unit's investigations.

The task force is scheduled to move into a satellite office later this year, and until then will operate at the FBI office on West Charleston Boulevard near Las Vegas Boulevard. The location of the new facility and the number of agents being moved to different positions in the reorganization were not released.

Commander Bill Conger, head of homeland security for Metro Police, said that the task force will open lines of communication.

"It helps information flow between local and federal law enforcement, and adding more agents is just going to help us that much more," Conger said.

Conger would not comment on the number of Metro officers working on the task force, but FBI officials have said there are two, and that the number would soon increase to five.

Last year there were only a handful of Metro officers who had the security clearance necessary to be informed by the FBI about certain secret information, but now there are more than 40.