Animal Experiment Researchers Suffer Recent Attacks
Two University of California, Santa Cruz scientists were the intended targets of two recent bombings in a new series of attacks aimed at biomedical researchers who experiment on animals.
One of the scientists and his family were forced to escape from a second-story window early Saturday when a firebomb was lit on their porch. An adult was treated at a hospital and released.
Police Capt. Steve Clark called the bombing "an attempted homicide." Authorities said they would be treating the attacks as “domestic terrorism.”
The other incident also involved a firebomb, which destroyed a car belonging to another researcher.
The attacks came four days after police obtained animal rights pamphlets left at a Santa Cruz coffeehouse that contained the names and home addresses of university scientists.
"Animal abusers everywhere beware," the pamphlets read. "We know where you live."
Molecular biologist David Feldheim, whose front door was charred, was listed in the pamphlet. According to his Web site, Feldheim’s lab uses mice to study the development of brain functions involved in eyesight.
Authorities would not identify the researcher whose car was destroyed but said that person was not named in the pamphlet.
Police said they have no suspects connected to Saturday’s attacks.
In recent years, three UCLA researchers who use non-human primates have been targeted with firebombs. Animal rights groups claimed responsibility for all three attacks.
More recently, masked protesters targeting UC Berkeley have scrawled graffiti and broken windows at scientists’ homes.
FBI investigators said the attacks at different universities are probably not centrally coordinated. They do share similar tactics, however, including posting researchers’ personal information online and in print, investigators said.
"These are odious assaults on individuals and on the principles of free inquiry by which we live," UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal said in a statement Saturday.
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