SANTA CRUZ, Calif.(AP)
The FBI is investigating two bombings that targeted university
scientists, the latest in a rash of attacks against biomedical
researchers who experiment on animals, authorities say.
Both scientists work at the University of California, Santa
Cruz. One of them and his family were forced to escape from a
second-story window early Saturday when a firebomb was lit on the
home's porch, Santa Cruz police said. An adult was treated at a
hospital and released.
Police Capt. Steve Clark called the bombing "an attempted
homicide."
Also that morning, a firebomb destroyed a car belonging to
another researcher. Clark said authorities were treating the
attacks as "domestic terrorism."
The attacks came four days after police obtained animal rights
pamphlets left at a Santa Cruz coffeehouse that contained the names
and home addresses of university scientists.
"Animal abusers everywhere beware," the pamphlets
read. "We know where you live."
Molecular biologist David Feldheim, whose front door was
charred, was listed in the pamphlet. According to his Web site,
Feldheim's lab uses mice to study the development of brain
functions involved in eyesight.
Authorities would not identify the researcher whose car was
destroyed but said that person was not named in the pamphlet.
Police said they have no suspects in Saturday's attacks, the
first since February, when animal rights activists showed up at the
house of a UC Santa Cruz breast cancer researcher during her young
daughter's birthday party.
The masked protesters pounded on the front door, and one threw a
punch at the researcher's husband as he tried to chase them
away, according to police. The FBI is still investigating.
In recent years, three UCLA researchers who use non-human
primates have been targeted with firebombs. Animal rights groups
claimed responsibility for all three attacks.
More recently, masked protesters targeting UC Berkeley have
scrawled graffiti and broken windows at scientists' homes.
FBI investigators said the attacks at different universities are
probably not centrally coordinated. They do share similar tactics,
however, including posting researchers' personal information
online and in print, investigators said.
"These are odious assaults on individuals and on the
principles of free inquiry by which we live," UC Santa Cruz
Chancellor George Blumenthal said in a statement Saturday.
Police said they plan to boost security for UC Santa Cruz
researchers whose names appeared in the pamphlets discovered last
week.
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