Reno Is Urged to Probe Threats Against Workers

An advocacy group for public employees is urging the Justice Department to step up its investigation of dozens of threats and incidents of violence against federal land managers in the West since the Oklahoma City bombing.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, in a letter to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, cited 58 incidents it said represent a pattern of violence since the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995 that killed 168 people.

They include three bombings at U.S. Forest Service offices, two arson fires at Bureau of Land Management buildings, physical assaults of five federal workers and shots fired at six others.

The group accused the Justice Department of failing to act aggressively enough and urged Reno to form a strike force to handle the cases.

“The lack of response tends to encourage additional lawlessness by the ‘wise use’ zealots against resource managers,” Jeff DeBonis, a former Forest Service worker from Eugene, Ore., said Monday. DeBonis is co-founder of PEER.

Reno had no immediate comment, but Justice Department spokesman Bill Brooks said the criticism “came as a shock to us.”

“We met with Mr. DeBonis last summer and made it very clear that our highest concern was, and still is, to protect federal employees,” Brooks said.

The employees’ group said, however, that few, if any, of the incidents have been resolved.

DeBonis said that during that meeting a year ago, department officials expressed concern that a government response could inflame the situation.

“They thought if they went after those people, it would rile them up and make it worse,” DeBonis said. “So we think there is a conscious effort not to stir the waters.”

Brooks countered that the Justice Department has filed several civil and criminal cases related to threats against federal employees.

The most important, he said, was a lawsuit the government won against Nye County, Nev., where county officials had claimed they had rights to federal lands there and were not bound by federal law.

“We do deal with incidents as they arise, and we take every one of them seriously,” he said. “We have to deal with things on a case-by-case basis, based on the law and the facts.”