The FBI is looking for a balding white man in his 40s who may be responsible for Tuesday’s bombing of an NAACP office building in Colorado Springs. The bombing happened on Tuesday before 11AM. According to FBI officials, a device was detonated against the wall of the building at 603 S. El Paso St.
A gas can had been placed next to the device but was not ignited by the explosion, officials said in a news release.
The explosion charred the exterior wall of the building, but no one was injured and no other damage was reported.
The FBI said it is looking for a person of interest, described as a balding white man in his 40s who may be driving a dirty, 2000 or older model white pickup truck with paneling, an open tailgate and a missing or covered license plate.
“Some neighbors came out and said they saw a Caucasian gentleman get into a white truck,” said Gene Southerland, who owns Mr. G’s Hair Design Studios, which shares the building with the NAACP office.
“It was such a beautiful day and everything, sunny. And in broad daylight, you hear this explosion. It’s frightening,” he said.
Southerland, a customer and a beautician were inside the business at the time of the explosion, which knocked down a few plastic bottles on a shelf in the northeast corner of the building, he said.
“I had a corrections officer in my chair, and he said it sounded like a shotgun blast,” Southerland said.