Colorado NAACP Office Bombing Update: FBI Looking for White Man in Connection to Potential Hate Crime After Explosion
Authorities in Colorado are searching for a person of interest in connection to a bomb that went off by a NAACP office in Colorado Springs on Tuesday morning.
Shortly before 11 a.m., an improvised explosive device was detonated against the exterior wall of a building that houses a local chapter of the NAACP in Colorado Springs, Denver Post reports.
FBI agents say that the explosive device was placed next to a gas can, although only the device exploded, not the can. The explosion was strong enough to knock items off the inside wall inside and leave singe marks against the building, but fortunately no one was hurt.
"I was cutting somebody's hair and I heard the explosion," Gene Southerland, the owner of Mr. G's Hair Design Studio, which is located in the same building, said. "It was such a loud explosion that some plastic containers fell off the shelf."
The FBI announced that they are now seeking a "potential person of interest," described as a balding white male who is around 40 years old.
"He may be driving a 2000 or older model dirty, white pick-up truck with paneling, a dark colored bed liner, open tailgate, and a missing or covered license plate," the FBI said in a statement.
Law enforcement agents investigating the bombing have yet to determine if this was a hate crime or a targeted attack.
"The investigation is ongoing, and it is not known at this time if the NAACP or a business in the vicinity was the intended target," FBI special agent Amy Sanders said.
Colorado Springs NAACP President Henry Allen, Jr., however, stated he believes the civil rights group was the intended target.
"We don't give up the struggle, apparently we are doing something correct. Apparently we have the attention of someone that knows we are working for civil rights for all. That is making some people uncomfortable, so therefore they feel the need to target," he said, reports NBC affliate KOAA.
Allen also told The Gazette that the group plans to "move on."
"This won't deter us from doing the job we want to do in the community," he continued.
Julie Skufca, a resident in Colorado Springs who lives on Moreno Street, said she was shocked when she saw the bomb go off.
"I saw all the smoke coming out and heading south. It really kind of made your heart stop for a second," she said.
Skufca added that she saw a 40-year-old white man driving a white pick-up by her home moments after the blast.
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