Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 18, 1990 TAG: 9003182362
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
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 building, in a shopping mall, were still smoldering nearly 12 hours later.
"It's total devastation," said John Fernandes, a DEA spokesman.
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.
The bombing was apparently the first ever against a DEA office in the United States, officials said.
Fort Myers is on Florida's Gulf Coast, 145 miles northwest of Miami.
The DEA office is a small satellite of the Miami field division and houses only about six to eight agents. The agency had moved into the building last October and was its only tenant, officials said.
Officials stressed Saturday they did not have any prime suspects. They also emphasized there was no apparent evidence linking the bombing to Colombia's drug cartels, which have waged a campaign of bombings and assassinations against Colombian government officials, judges and journalists and, in previous years, have threatened to kill senior DEA officials.
DEA has set up nationwide investigative teams targeting cartel activities in the United States. But in south Florida, those teams work directly out of the Miami headquarters rather than small satellite offices such as Fort Myers.
by CNB