What we know about the Palm Springs fertility clinic bombing
An explosion outside a Palm Springs, Calif., fertility clinic late Saturday morning killed one person, injured four others and sent debris flying for blocks in all directions in the city about 100 miles east of Los Angeles.
The prime suspect in the bombing is also who authorities believe was the sole fatality in the blast: Guy Edward Bartkus.
The 25-year-old California resident held nihilistic views and may have also had antinatalist leanings, the FBI said. Investigators say the clinic was targeted and are treating the bombing as an intentional act of domestic terrorism.
Here’s what we know so far.
What happened?
First responders arrived at the scene of an explosion on North Indian Canyon Drive in Palm Springs around 11 a.m. local time, finding a debris field 250 yards in size.
Palm Springs Police Chief Andrew Mills said police and firefighters encountered a “massive crime scene” with “blocks of debris.”
Investigators said the size of the blast eclipsed that of the deadly 2018 bombing at an Aliso Viejo spa. “This was probably the largest bombing scene that we’ve had in Southern California,” said Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.
The bomb was large and powerful enough to “throw pieces of vehicle hundreds of feet in the air and then several blocks away,” Davis added. He declined to comment on the type of materials used in the bomb, citing the ongoing investigation.
Those injured by the blast were all released from the hospital and medical care as of late Sunday morning, authorities said.
A fertility clinic was damaged, but its lab was not harmed
The blast cut through the American Reproductive Centers (ARC) fertility clinic, which has been operating in Palm Springs since 2006, according to its website.
The clinic posted a photo on Instagram of its badly damaged facade, with building materials and glass strewn across the road and black smoke and flames billowing from inside.
ARC confirmed that a vehicle exploded in its parking lot, but said no staff members were hurt and that there was no damage to its eggs, embryos and other reproductive materials.
“Our mission has always been to help build families, and in times like these, we are reminded of just how fragile and precious life is,” the clinic wrote.
In a news conference on Sunday, Davis of the FBI thanked the Palm Springs police and fire departments as well as FBI bomb technicians for working quickly to ensure that none of the embryos at the facility were lost.
Who is the suspect?
On Sunday, the FBI identified its prime suspect in the bombing as Bartkus, who lived in Twentynine Palms, a town about 60 miles northeast of Palm Springs. Investigators said they had earlier executed a search warrant there.
Officials were “fairly confident” that the deceased person found near the vehicle was Bartkus, Davis said, adding that Bartkus had been driving a silver 2010 Ford Fusion sedan.
Investigators said they were combing through online posts and other writings made by Bartkus. “The subject had nihilistic ideations, and this was a targeted attack against the IVF facility,” Davis said Sunday. Nihilism is a philosophy that rejects values and beliefs and views existence as useless.
FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller also confirmed that the agency was scrutinizing evidence “indicating antinatalist views,” which refers to an ideology that proposes it’s wrong to have children.
According to LAist, Bartkus posted writings and an audio recording about the attack online, which surfaced in the aftermath of the weekend bombing. He described himself as a “misandrist” and “promortalist,” a reference to the belief that it is ethical to end suffering by ending lives, the website reported. “Basically I’m anti-life,” Bartkus said in the recording. “And IVF is like kind of the epitome of pro-life ideology.” NPR has not independently verified this audio.
Davis said investigators believe Barktus was trying to livestream the bombing. The 25-year-old had not previously appeared on the FBI’s radar but may have had encounters with other law enforcement agencies, Davis added.
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