A bomb went off near a Colorado Springs, Colorado, chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Wednesday morning.
The FBI called the incident intentional, according to the Los Angeles Times. The homemade explosive went off outside the building, which caused damage to the NAACP chapter’s offices as well as a barber shop also located inside the building.
“There was smoke everywhere, the building on the side was burnt,” a witness told KDVR, a local news station. According to FBI spokesperson Amy Sanders, an improvised bomb was placed against the outer wall of the building next to a gasoline can, which didn’t explode with the bomb. At 10:45 AM local time, witnesses heard a loud boom. No one was killed or injured as a result of the bomb.
Many suspect the incident was a hate crime, though this has not yet been confirmed. “It has also not yet been determined if the motive was a hate crime, domestic terrorism, a personal act of violence against a specific individual, or other motive as there are numerous individuals and entities tied to the building in the vicinity of the explosion,” Sanders said in an email to the Los Angeles Times. If the bomb was purposely targeted at the NAACP, it would not be the first time the organization has faced violence since it was founded in 1909.
The FBI along with its Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are conducting an investigation of Wednesday’s incident, though FBI officials said the explosion “was caused deliberately.”
