Firebomb Rips Through DEA Office in Florida
A firebomb ripped through a recently opened Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) office in Fort Myers, Fla., early yesterday, destroying files and causing morethan $4 million in damages in what investigators said may have been the work of local drug traf-fickers.</br></br>The office was unoccupied at the time of the bombing, about 2 a.m., and no injuries were reported. But officials said the remains of the 6,000 square foot office building, located in a shopping mall, were still smoldering nearly 12 hours later.</br></br>About 2 1/2 hours before the bombing, another incendiary device exploded between two automobiles in a residential section of Fort Myers about three to four miles away. No injuries were reported, but officials said they were investigating the possibility that the two incidents were connected.</br></br>The office bombing was apparently the first ever against a DEA office in the United States, officials said. A team of agents from the DEA, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Lee County sheriff's office immediately began reviewing recent drug cases brought by the Fort Myers office to look for possible links to the bombing.</br></br>Fernandes called the incident "an act of desperation" by drug dealers who he said may have been retaliating for recent cases brought by DEA agents in southwest Florida. "It could be one of many individuals or groups of individuals," Fernandes said. "If you look at the productivity of the Fort Myers office . . . they've been knocking them dead lately . . . But we are not going to be intimidated."