FBI Seeks Man After Explosion Near NAACP Office
The FBI has identified a “potential person of interest” in connection with an explosion outside of a local NAACP chapter in Colorado Springs on Tuesday morning.
CNN reported that late Tuesday morning a makeshift bomb, or improvised explosive device, detonated but failed to ignite a gasoline can placed alongside it. Witnesses reported hearing a loud boom, and though no one was injured, it left some shaken.
“All of a sudden I heard this big boom,” one witness told CNN affiliate KDVR. “There was smoke everywhere the building on the side was burnt.”
The witness continued: “Whoever did it took off right away though. That’s all I heard and it was scary.”
Along with the NAACP chapter, the building also houses several businesses, including a hair salon named Mr. G’s Hair Design Studios.
“I was cutting somebody’s hair and I heard the explosion,” Gene Southerland, who owns the salon in the building with the NAACP offices, told the Post. “It was such a loud explosion that some plastic containers fell off the shelf.”
FBI officials say the explosion was deliberate, but are not sure if the NAACP was the intended target.
Officials say the person of interest is “a balding man, about 40 years old, who was seen leaving the scene in a white pickup truck with a missing or covered license plate.”
The organization made a statement on Tuesday saying, “The NAACP looks forward to a full and thorough investigation into this matter by federal agents and local law enforcement.”
The FBI has requested that anyone with information call its Denver tip line at (303) 435-7787.
(Photo Credit: KKTV News)
