For a few terrifying moments in the early morning hours of the recent Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, authorities in Los Angeles were concerned that terrorists had launched an attack in a downtown subway station.
Several people had been overcome by a cloud of noxious gas, causing at least two of them to begin vomiting and a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy to experience a burning sensation in his eyes and lungs.
But hazardous-materials teams were unable to find the source of the gas in the Metro station at 7th and Figueroa streets, so fears of terrorism began to fade. Ultimately, investigators determined that the toxic cloud was chlorine gas emanating from a storm catch basin two blocks away.
The culprit, prosecutors allege, was not some scary extremist group, but the owner of The Standard, a trendy downtown hotel with a reputation for celebrity sightings and a rooftop swimming pool.
https://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/31/local/me-standard31
schiff connected to the standard.