Second courthouse in Florida struck with white powder, this time Broward County.

[originalpckelly]

"(CBS4) FT. LAUDERDALE BSO has responded to the Broward County Courthouse after a mail room worker found a white powder in the mail room, making it the second white powder incident Thursday in South Florida.

At about 4:30pm BSO received the report and sent Hazmat crews to the scene, where mail room employees and that mailroom were quarantined, pending field tests performed on the substance.

No injuries have been reported so far.

Earlier this afternoon, the courthouse in West Palm Beach also had a similar scare, with the discovery of the toxic substance Tellurium in a letter at the courthouse shortly after noon."
http://cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_011171144.html

This is the second incident, as earlier there was an incident at Palm Beach County's courthouse.
Here is a story about that earlier incident:
http://www.jacksonville.com/apnews/stories/011107/D8MJA6R82.shtml

[originalpckelly]

1. This is the second time today...

this looks like some organized attack.

[Ian David]

5. I'll bet you ten bucks it's one guy, and he's a big fan of Ann Coulter. n/t

[uppityperson]

2. Mrbush says up the troops, more letters come

proving again that we are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here?

[tridim]

3. Another domestic Freeper terrorist perhaps?

[originalpckelly]

4. Who knows, this stuff is poisonous however...

so it might be a real attack unlike the unafreeper.

[seabeyond]

6. they said poisonous, then said tellurium, salt substance. doesnt sound poison

to me. i had to leave and didnt get to stay caught up on it. is tellurium poisonous

[tridim]

7. Tellurium wiki

(I'm probably a suspect now since I did a google search)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellurium

Humans exposed to as little as 0.01 mg/m3 or less in air develop "tellurium breath", which has a garlic-like odor. The garlic odor that is associated with human intake of tellurium compounds is caused from the tellurium being metabolized by the body. When the body metabolizes tellurium in any oxidation state, the tellurium gets converted into dimethyl telluride. Dimethyl telluride is volatile and produces the garlic-like smell.

Tellurium and tellurium compounds should be considered to be toxic and need to be handled with care.

[originalpckelly]

10. #9 has the full list of side effects, it's pretty nasty stuff...

but it's not as toxic or lethal as most substances. Kind of weird someone would use this. Makes me wonder if they were simply doing something within their area of expertise, this stuff is used in computer chips. If someone was simply going to kill another person, and if they even wanted to use white powder, there's a lot of extremely lethal substances which they could have done it with.

[originalpckelly]

8. It sounds like it is, at least from this wiki entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellurium

[originalpckelly]

9. Here is a medical safety data sheet on it, it can damage kidneys, liver...

blood, and heart.

"Dimethyltelluride is toxic. It attacks the blood, liver, kidneys and heart. It can also produce dystrophy of the small intestine. The effects are cumulative"

http://www.epichem.com/metalorganics/pdfs/dimethyltelluride.pdf

[drm604]

11. According to wikipedia

it's radioactive and probably toxic. Other references say the same things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellurium

Isotopes
There are 30 known isotopes of tellurium with atomic masses that range from 108 to 137. Naturally found tellurium consists of eight isotopes (listed in the table to the right); three of them are observed to be radioactive. 128Te has the longest known half-life, 2.2×1024 years, among all radioactive isotopes. Tellurium is the first element which can undergo Alpha Decay, with isotopes 106Te to 110Te being able to undergo this mode of decay.

Precautions
Humans exposed to as little as 0.01 mg/m3 or less in air develop "tellurium breath", which has a garlic-like odor. The garlic odor that is associated with human intake of tellurium compounds is caused from the tellurium being metabolized by the body. When the body metabolizes tellurium in any oxidation state, the tellurium gets converted into dimethyl telluride. Dimethyl telluride is volatile and produces the garlic-like smell.

Tellurium and tellurium compounds should be considered to be toxic and need to be handled with care.

[seabeyond]

14. reading in between cooking and eating dinner. i appreciate it all. really interesting.

so the person that did this was intent to harm

[porphyrian]

12. That is so incredibly stupid.

If the person responsible isn't stark raving mad, they've got to be a Darwin Award candidate.

[monmouth]

13. I'm here in West Palm. The Feds left pretty early and no more postings on it.