fbi investigation
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Twenty-seven Jewish community centers in 17 states reported receiving false telephone bomb threats on Jan. 18, prompting evacuations and an FBI probe into the second wave of hoax attacks to target American Jewish facilities this month.
The JCC Association of North America, a network of health and education centers, said the threatened organizations were working with police and many had resumed operations, after no bombs were found nor injuries reported, as was the case after the earlier series of threats on Jan. 9.
A makeshift bomb placed outside a local chapter of the NAACP in Colorado went off yesterday, releasing smoke but failing to ignite a gasoline can placed beside it, Newsweek reports. There were no injuries.
The FBI has declared the bombing "deliberate," but is still investigating whether the NAACP was the intended target. The building's other tenant, a hair salon, does not appear to have been the target.
The media's slow-to-silent response to the incident has raised ire on Twitter, with many concerned that the bombing did not make news on mainstream outlets until today.
"Thankfully, no injuries were reported, but the fear it struck in the local community and in citizens concerned for issues of racial justice everywhere were felt immediately ... In a time when racial tensions in our country appear to be growing, the troubling nature of this act of domestic terrorism should be blatantly obvious, but the lack of mainstream media coverage of the bombing ... was downright disturbing," wrote Shaun King, staff writer for the Daily Kos.
According to Newsweek, the FBI has asked that anyone with information call its Denver tip line at 303-435-7787.