'This is just nuts': False alarms anger lawmen

By Terry Frieden
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Angry federal law enforcement officials, overwhelmed by thousands of prank calls and "silly" emergency reports about anthrax threats, are taking a hard line with the relatively few hoax perpetrators they can identify.

In Rhode Island, the FBI arrested a man who admitted he sent an anthrax letter to a friend as "a joke." Agents were not amused.

According to an FBI affidavit, William Sylvia admitted sending a letter to a friend in Lincoln, Rhode Island, that said, "If you weren't killed by the bomb, then you will be killed by the anthrax in this letter."

When a white powder fell from the envelope, the individual called 911, and authorities responded.

The affidavit said Sylvia admitted he wrote the letter and enclosed Gold Bond powder. Federal prosecutors charged him Wednesday with knowingly mailing a threatening communication.

On Tuesday, two Connecticut men were charged with committing anthrax hoaxes in separate cases. One of the men would face up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of $3 million if convicted.

At Dulles Washington International Airport on October 10, a woman who said she had a bomb in her bag as she boarded a flight from Washington to Boston was removed from the airplane and later indicted.

The woman, Virginia Roessler, was charged with giving false information and threats. She is scheduled to be arraigned next week.

Thomas William Brown, who had a small pocketknife in his boot, also was arrested at Dulles and was charged with attempting to board a commercial airline with a concealed weapon.

Several law enforcement officials, who asked not to be identified, expressed dismay, frustration and disappointment over the thousands of false alarms and unnecessary calls that have kept hundreds of emergency response teams occupied around the clock.

"Maybe if you've just done your laundry, and you discover some white powder on your hands in your home, it's not anthrax," one federal law enforcement official told CNN.

"How many instances of anthrax have there been in private homes? None. People have got to start using common sense."

Another exhausted FBI agent said, "In my 30 years, I've never seen anything like this and I hope I never see it again."

Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller spoke out strongly Tuesday against those draining investigative resources at a cost to taxpayers of millions of dollars.

But some lawmen express nearly as much contempt for well-intentioned citizens frightened by the most innocent of circumstances as they do for wrongdoers.

A rider ordered a bus stopped and evacuated because sand on the floor was feared to be a suspicious powder. A cardboard box on a curb was assumed to be a bomb. A truck that kicked up a cloud of dust was thought to be men of Middle East descent spraying the road.

"We had 80 calls of suspicious substances or packages yesterday," said one official. "Not one of them produced anything at all. This is just nuts."