Anthrax Hoax Alarms Workers in Westwood

A suspected terrorist incident in Westwood Village was deemed a hoax Thursday, but not before it forced authorities to strip and decontaminate 21 terrified office workers for fear they had been exposed to the deadly anthrax bacterium via the U.S. mail.

The FBI and city and county fire and health officials swarmed into a bustling 21-story tower at 1100 South Glendon Ave. about 10:30 a.m., after a parking company employee there opened a letter and read that the paper was laced with the biotoxin.

Because anthrax is often fatal when its microscopic spores are inhaled or even touched, terrorists have threatened to use it as a germ warfare agent both here and overseas.

The problem, authorities at the scene said, was that no one can immediately determine if the threat is real; it can take as long as 30 days for the first flu-like symptoms of anthrax contamination to show themselves. By that time, the victim’s respiratory system may have suffered irreversible shock.

FBI spokesman John Hoos said authorities were confident the hoax had nothing to do with opposition to the U.S. bombing of Iraq.

Authorities said they immediately evacuated the tower, shut down the ventilation system and quarantined the unidentified employee and 20 other men and women who worked at the Executive Parking Co. on the seventh floor. The 21 workers were taken to a secure room in the building’s basement, where they were stripped naked, tested for traces of anthrax, “scrubbed down” and decontaminated by hazardous materials experts from the county health department.

By 1 p.m., after no evidence of anthrax was found on the employees, their work space or the letter, the workers were given new clothes and transported by van to the UCLA Medical Center under FBI escort.

There, they were decontaminated a second time, given precautionary inoculations and held the rest of the day for observation. They were also questioned by FBI agents, Hoos said.

A woman identifying herself as the sister of the employee who touched the letter said workers on the seventh floor spent the day in abject terror.

Dina Smith said she called her sister, Dionne Smith, 31, while Dionne was quarantined in the Westwood office. “She was just in hell,” Dina Smith said. “It’s a horrible situation. She didn’t know what was going on, or what to think.”

At least 18 other people who worked in the building or who tested them for anthrax also were admitted to the hospital for observation and testing, said UCLA Medical Center spokeswoman Elaine Schmidt. She said no one tested at the hospital showed signs of anthrax contamination.

There were few details available about who sent the letter, or why.

Lee Chandler, general manager of Monty’s restaurant at the top of the office tower, said she was told by the building manager that a worker on the seventh floor of the building received a letter from her ex-husband that said, “You have been exposed to anthrax.” The manager did not return a reporter’s phone call.

FBI agents would not comment on that, or divulge what was written in the letter or whether it contained any political messages, saying it had become the subject of a criminal investigation.

But FBI spokesman Hoos said, “This has nothing to do with what is going on in Iraq. It could be an individual with an ax to grind, [or] it could be political. We do not know at this time.”

Hoos said the letter was the latest of many anthrax threats sent through the mail in recent months, and that all of them have proved to be harmless. Some of the envelopes contained a harmless brown powder, but he said none of them appeared to be the work of any organized group.

In Riverside County on Monday, 20 people were quarantined and decontaminated after a Perris School District secretary opened a letter that claimed the envelope contained anthrax. In November, a Riverside elementary school teacher received a thank-you card containing a moist towelette and a warning that it contained anthrax.

And in October, abortion clinics in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee received letters that said, “You have just been exposed to anthrax.”

In light of those threats, and because of heightened tensions over the bombing of Iraq, authorities mobilized Thursday as if Westwood were under attack.

They blocked off much of Westwood Village, snarling traffic on Wilshire and other boulevards on a day when UCLA students were trying to get in to take final exams. Several blocks were shut off even to pedestrians, denying some the opportunity to get to work or do Christmas shopping in the many stores in the village.

Despite the huge police presence, confusion reigned. Many people milled about on both sides of the police lines without apparent direction.

One, Carl Jacobsen, wasn’t sure whether he needed medical help. As he was standing along Glendon Avenue, a police officer came to him and said, “If you’ve been exposed, you’re exposing everybody else, so keep yourself isolated. . . . You may want to go to the hospital and get yourself checked.”

Jacobsen hurried toward the medical center.

“Hearing that there is a potential anthrax threat, something so lethal, is disconcerting,” said Glenn Schoenfeld, who works for an investor relations firm on the 18th floor of the building. He said that his floor was never evacuated, and that no one told his office mates that the coast was clear later in the day.

Monty’s manager Chandler said she and her staff were ordered to stay in the building, but were told about 1 p.m. that they could walk outside The restaurant, which did not open, had hundreds of reservations for holiday parties.

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Times staff writer Peter Hong contributed to this story.