FBI Says ‘Hate Crime is One Possibility’ for Blast Outside NAACP

By Aura Bogado Jan 07, 2015

Investigators are searching for an approximately 40-year-old balding white man in connection to an explosion outside a Colorado Springs, Colo., chapter office of the NAACP on Tuesday. A crude incendiary device was deliberately placed outside the building and blasted, but a gas canister placed nearby failed to ignite.

No one was injured in Tuesday’s bombing and it caused only minor damage to the building–but the FBI is indicating the explosion outside the NAACP may be no accident. This, according to the Guardian:

FBI special agent Amy Sanders said she couldn’t say whether the explosion was targeting the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.

"We believe it was deliberately set and are investigating all potential motives at this time," said Sanders in an email.

"A hate crime is one possibility," she added.

The building that houses the NAACP also houses a barbershop. According to Newsweek, the local NAACP chapter president is reluctant to call the act a hate crime.