Anti-Terrorist Task Force Joins Bomb Investigation

A law enforcement anti-terrorist task force has taken over the investigation of a powerful chemical bomb left on the back of a pickup truck near the West Los Angeles offices of the Internal Revenue Service, police said Friday.

The Joint Los Angeles Task Force on Terrorism--made up of agents from the police and sheriff’s departments, the FBI and the Secret Service--joined the case because “this was a terrorist act, no matter who did it,” said Los Angeles Police Cmdr. William Booth.

After a daylong standoff and the evacuation of thousands of residents and workers, five 55-gallon steel drums containing explosive chemicals were disarmed by bomb experts Thursday evening.

The drums, discovered early Thursday on the bed of a burning pickup truck, were removed and are being stored at a “safe and secret” location while specialized federal and local investigators examine their contents, Booth said.

Authorities were slow to release details of the investigation. They would not say whether the owner of the truck had been found or questioned, nor would they say whether they had identified any suspects.

Thus far, the IRS office is considered only one of several possible targets, Booth said.

“We are very open on what the target might have been,” he said. “We haven’t ruled out the IRS, but we are not limiting the investigation to just one target.”

Nevertheless, Thursday’s incident was the latest in a string of bombings, attempted bombings and explosions near IRS offices in Los Angeles and Orange counties over the last several years.

On March 2, 1987, seven pipe bombs--two containing live explosive charges--were discovered at a federal building that housed IRS offices in Laguna Niguel. The live bombs were detonated and there was no damage. The FBI reportedly investigated whether the attempted bombing was tied to an anti-tax fringe group.

On March 3, 1986, an explosion and arson fire did more than $1 million in damage to an IRS office in Glendale. Four days later, four pipe bombs were defused at a vacated IRS office in Culver City. And in September, 1988, five bombs exploded in a stolen car parked in the garage of the same building involved in Thursday’s incident.

On Thursday, the truck loaded with explosive chemicals was found parked on Colby Avenue just south of Olympic Boulevard and across from the Olympic Plaza building. The IRS occupies most of the building’s fifth floor.

“We are certainly looking into whether there are any similarities” among the string of cases, FBI Special Agent Jim Neilson said.

Whether or not the IRS was the intended target Thursday, some of the other tenants in the building complained that it might not be safe to share space with such a controversial government agency.

“If you have a government office like that, and it’s had a problem, you would think they’d put in some security,” said an attorney who has worked out of the Olympic Plaza for four years and who asked that his name not be used.

“I would like to vote to get the IRS out of here,” said Bill Schoneman, an employee of the XX-Cal computer testing firm, which also has offices in the building.