Toxic substance ricin is found in LV hotel room
Investigators wearing hazardous materials suits work Thursday at the Extended Stay America on Valley View Boulevard after the toxin ricin was found in a room at the hotel.
Lombardo did not elaborate on who the man was.
The man, who told police the toxic agent did not belong to him, took the powdery substance to the manager's office, and the manager called police.
Ricin, a substance used for cancer research that has "no other medical use," was discovered about 3 p.m. by a man who was cleaning out a suite at the Extended Stay America at 4270 S. Valley View Blvd., Joseph Lombardo, a Las Vegas police captain and Homeland Security Bureau chief, said at a news conference about 9:30 p.m.
A toxic biological agent was found in a suite on Valley View Boulevard near Flamingo Road on Thursday afternoon, but Las Vegas police said they were not searching for a suspect and nobody was harmed by the substance.
The man, along with three employees of the long-term stay hotel, were taken to a hospital as a precaution, although they had no signs of being affected by the substance, police said.
Police were not sure about the origin of the substance or why it was in the room. The ricin and castor beans, from which ricin is derived, were found in the suite, although Lombardo did not say how much of the substance was found.
Preliminary tests showed that the substance was ricin, a deadly toxin that can be a powder, a mist or a pellet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Web site. It also can be dissolved in water.
"Ricin is very serious," Lombardo said. "Something the size of the head of a pin can be deadly."
Officials were downplaying the significance of the discovery late Thursday.
Earlier, multiple agencies responded to the incident, including the Clark County Fire Department and the Nevada National Guard.
"This is not a terror incident at this point," Lombardo said.
"We don't know that there was any criminal intent on anybody's part," Las Vegas police Sgt. John Loretto said. "It could have been somebody that was reading a book who wanted to try to make something."
Police cordoned off the area of Valley View between Flamingo Road and Harmon Avenue, and residents at the Extended Stay America were not being allowed back into the building late Thursday.
Residents at an apartment complex north and east of the suites were allowed to come and go.
The last time Las Vegas police dealt with ricin was in 2003, when a 60-year-old former gaming executive and chemist killed himself with the agent.
The man, Tomoo Okada, told emergency responders that he had injected himself with the deadly poison, which prompted two hospital emergency rooms to be shut down for about three hours.
On Thursday, 30-year-old Charlie Aitken, who was visiting Las Vegas from Nova Scotia, Canada, for the first time, said he was told by police to leave his room at the Extended Stay America about 3 p.m.
As he walked out, he saw men suiting up in hazardous materials outfits.
"It was like, 'Welcome to Vegas!,' " Aitken said.
Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0440.
The chemical structure of ricin
On February 14, a man staying at the Valley View Extended Stay America hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada was hospitalized after experiencing respiratory distress. The man lapsed into unconsciousness and has been at the hospital ever since.

Since the bills at the hotel were going unpaid, Extended Stay America began to evict the man from the room. Another man, described as either a friend or relative, went to the hotel on Thursday to collect the personal belongings of the hospitalized man.

According to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Deputy Chief Kathy Suey, he found several vials of a white substance. He brought them to the attention of the hotel manager, who called police.

Initial tests, which further tests confirmed on Friday, the substance was the deadly toxin ricin, an extremely dangerous biological agent. Ricin is extracted from castor beans through the waste produced in the manufacture of castor oil. It is currently being used in cancer treatment research. There has been research for its use as a chemical/biological warfare agent. An amount smaller than the point of a pin will kill a human being. It is estimated to be several thousand times more toxic than cyanide and there is no known antidote.

Police cordoned off the area around Valley View between Flamingo Road and Harmon Avenue. Three employees and the man who made the discovery were taken to the hospital as a precaution. So were three police officers. They are all reported to show no signs of poisoning.

Nevada National Guard and other emergency services responded to secure the area. Residents at the Extended Stay America were allowed back into the building late Thursday. The hotel reopened fully on Friday after the room and other areas of the hotel were decontaminated.
Castor beans
The man whose room it was "is in critical condition and he is unable to speak with us right now. We have no indication why the ricin was in that room," said Deputy Chief Suey.

"Usually, if ricin victims survive the first three to five days, they usually do fine," Dr. Lawrence Sands told CNN. However, survivors often have long-term organ damage.

At least three pets were found in the room. "Two of those pets are fine. One of the pets is deceased or was put down," Suey said. "The dog that was in there was without food and water for a week," she added that there was no reason to supect it was exposed to ricin. Castor beans were also found in the room.

Officials have also recovered from the room a firearm, as well as an "anarchist" text containing an article on ricin.

Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Richard Kolko said the incident is being treated as a criminal matter and did not appear to be related to terrorism "based on the information gathered so far."

Captain Joe Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said that ricin is not illegal to own unless it is intended for the poisoning of a person, adding that "We did have enough ricin to be of concern."

In 2003, a man committed suicide in Las Vegas using ricin. There have also been a few incidents where ricin powder was found in the mail. Also in 2003, the United Kingdom had the Wood Green ricin plot which in the end found no ricin.

In 1978, Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov was famously assassinated in London with ricin injected with the tip of an umbrella.