White Powder

This must be what Denver Shenanigans was talking about yesterday.

Four Colorado agencies targeted with white powder in letters

DENVER - Inspectors with the United States Postal Service and the FBI are investigating a series of threatening letters and white powder scares in the metro area.

The first happened at the Centennial building around 1 p.m. on Monday. Another envelope was discovered at the World Trade Center building in Downtown Denver around 2 p.m.

At 3 p.m. a third letter was found at the Colorado Department of Agriculture in Lakewood. The last threatening letter was found at the Department of Regulatory Agencies on Broadway after 5 p.m.

"Who knows what that reason would be, but I think this is more than simple conjecture. There is certainly something going on here, someone has an axe to grind," said Lt. Phil Champagne with the Denver Fire Department.

A postal inspector spokesman says it is too early to determine if the four incidents come from one source, but they did say since only Colorado state agencies were targeted with threatening letters and white powder there seems to be a link.

Department of Agriculture mail worker Merry Colmenero opened one of those envelopes.

"And the letter said in big red letters, 'You are now poisoned and anyone who comes into contact with this or you will be poisoned also,' and then it went on to say something about Mohammed and Islam," said Colmenero.

She is one of nearly 10 people exposed to what eventually was determined to be either sugar substitute or other household products.

While the contents are considered safe, officials said such scares cause fear and also a waste of taxpayer money since firefighters and hazardous material teams had to be called in to evacuate hundreds of people.

The task for the FBI and postal inspectors is to now pinpoint who sent the letters.

Anyone with information is urged to call the U.S. postal inspectors at 303-313-5320.