A 25-year-old man, believed by the FBI to be behind an explosion at a Southern California fertility clinic, left behind writings criticizing pro-life views before conducting what investigators are labeling a terrorist act, authorities stated on Sunday.
Guy Edward Bartkus from Twentynine Palms, California, was named by the FBI as the alleged perpetrator of the car bomb explosion on Saturday. This incident caused damage to the clinic located in the upscale desert city of Palm Springs, situated east of Los Angeles.
Investigators confirmed that Bartkus perished in the explosion, which a senior FBI official described as potentially the “largest bombing scene experienced in Southern California.” A body was discovered near a burned vehicle outside the clinic.
Bartkus attempted to livestream the explosion and left behind writings that communicated “nihilistic ideations” that were still being examined to determine his state of mind, said Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office. The writings seemed to indicate anti-natalist views, which hold that people should not continue to procreate. U.S. Attorney Bilal “Bill” Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in the area, called the message “anti-pro-life.”
“This was a targeted attack against the IVF facility,” Davis said Sunday. “Make no mistake: we are treating this, as I said yesterday, as an intentional act of terrorism.”
The bombing injured four other people, though Davis said all embryos at the facility were saved.
“Good guys one, bad guys zero,” he said.
Authorities were executing a search warrant in Twentynine Palms, a city of 28,000 residents about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Palm Springs, as part of the investigation.
The blast gutted the single-story American Reproductive Centers clinic, though a doctor said its staff members were safe.
“Thank God today happened to be a day that we have no patients,” Dr. Maher Abdallah, who leads the clinic, told The Associated Press in a phone interview Saturday. —- Associated Press writer Christopher Weber contributed from Los Angeles.
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