New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a lobbyist working on his gun control campaign received threatening letters that tested positive for the deadly poison ricin.
Police said Wednesday that one of the letters was received on Friday and was opened at the mail center in Lower Manhattan. According to The New York Times, none of the mail staff members had shown symptoms of contact with the poison, but officers who were in contact with the letters are being treated at a hospital. “They’re being checked out as a precaution,” NYPD spokesman Paul J. Browne said.
The second letter was received in Washington Sunday. It was addressed to Mark Glaze, a lobbyist leading the Mayors Against Illegal Guns group, which Bloomberg leads and is a member of.
Both letters had the same content and referred to the mayor’s crusade for strict gun control measures. “It’s threatening, and it’s very clearly about one issue,” an official told the Times.
CNN reports that both were postmarked in Shreveport, Louisiana on May 20. FBI spokesman Jim Margolin said that they are investigating the letters to find out who submitted them.
THis news follows the reports of ricin-laced letters sent to PResident Obama, Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker and a judge. James Everett Dutschke of Tupelo, Mississippi was charged in that incident. Just last week, another ricin-laced letter was sent to a judge in Washington state and the FBI arrested Matthew Ryan Buquet in that case.