Terrorism threat never materialized

Jen Lawson

Friday, Jan. 21, 2005 | 10:56 a.m.

The possible terror threat against Las Vegas on Wednesday night wasn't anything new to Sheriff Bill Young, who said the city is mentioned in threats that turn out to be empty as often as once a month.

But this time, with the eyes of the world on this week's presidential inauguration and the heightened security measures in Washington, D.C., the Las Vegas threat was leaked to reporters after federal and local authorities determined it was not credible.

"Las Vegas is on the chart," Young said Thursday. "It's mentioned quite a bit. We're a highly visible city ... We stand for a lot of things these folks don't care for."

The decisions this week to not notify the public immediately and to not raise the local terror alert from yellow to orange weren't difficult for local and federal authorities to make, Young said, because the information seemed flimsy from the start.

Young said he expects his access to information can only be improved by an upcoming move: A Metro Police detective is to be assigned to the Department of Homeland Security's operations center in Washington to specifically watch for threats relating to Las Vegas.

Wednesday night's notification came to Young from the Las Vegas office of the FBI. Agents said that a possible threat had been made against Washington, Las Vegas and other tourism-oriented cities to coincide with President Bush's inauguration Thursday.

Specific types of vehicles -- limousines, buses, taxis, commercial vehicles and Lincoln Town Cars -- were to be used as car bombs in the nation's capital as well as Las Vegas and the other cities. But no specific places, times or people were mentioned, Young said.

Metro officials made announcements to officers at briefings, to commercial carriers and to security chiefs at Strip resorts.

FBI officials asked Young not to go to the public with the information because of the potential for mass pandemonium, he said.

The FBI released a short statement about the threat Thursday, stating that the information was not "corroborated or verifiable" and was determined to be noncredible, but the bureau would not comment further.

Security was increased at McCarran International Airport. The airport followed its emergency operations plan, airport spokeswoman Elaine Sanchez said, refusing to provide further details of the plan.

The Transportation Security Administration alerted its screeners to be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary, said a TSA spokeswoman, who added that unspecified law enforcement alerts often call for a greater security presence.

While authorities were looking into the threat, the Las Vegas Fire & Rescue bomb squad was called to investigate a suspicious package outside the Tropicana on the Strip.

Fire & Rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski said the department was notified of the threat, but they didn't handle the suspicious package -- which turned out to be harmless -- any differently. The bomb squad approaches every call as if it's a worst-case scenario, he said.

By 11 p.m. Wednesday the FBI had determined that the threats were without merit.

"It was the FBI's feeling that it was not a credible threat, so there was no need to ramp up our security in Las Vegas," Young said.

"If and when there is a threat that has any credibility, I'll be the first one out there" alerting the public, he said, "but it never got to that level."

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who was also called when authorities were investigating the threat, said terrorists want to create chaos and fear and manipulate the alert system so the public becomes numb to it.

"If you hear it so many times, it becomes like the boy who cried wolf," he said, adding that authorities weren't going to "fall into the trap of holding press conferences" every time a threat is made against Las Vegas.

Las Vegas has been mentioned in publicized information that could have originated from terrorist groups in the past.

In August the FBI and local law enforcement officials reviewed videotapes taken by a Pakistani man who was arrested while filming the skyline in Charlotte, N.C.. The videos contained footage of various U.S. cities, including Las Vegas, but were deemed to be nothing more than tourist-type videos by Metro.

The man who was arrested, Kamran Akhtar, of Elmhurst, N.Y., was not charged with any terrorism-related crimes, only charged with immigration violations.

During the weeks leading up to Jan. 1, 2004, Las Vegas went to an elevated, orange, terror-alert level after Las Vegas was named in intelligence information along with New York, Baltimore and other major cities as sites for possible terrorist attack over New Year's.

Five of the terrorists involved in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, including ringleader Mohamed Atta, spent time in Las Vegas during the summer before the attacks. Authorities have not been able to determine what the men were doing in Las Vegas.

Given the repeated threats, Young said he did not understand why more federal anti-terrorism funding was not allocated for Las Vegas.

With Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev, now in place as the Senate minority leader, Young said he hoped he wouldn't be shortchanged again.