Aug 4, 2008 2:45 pm US/Eastern
Reward Offered In Calif. Scientist Firebombings
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS) ―
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Firebombed car of UCSC faculty member.
Santa Cruz city officials announced a $30,000 reward Monday for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for two firebombings targeting University of California, Santa Cruz scientists.
The weekend incidents were the latest in a string of attacks against researchers who experiment on animals.
A spokesman for the animal rights activist group ALF, or Animal Liberation Front, claimed responsibility Monday for the attacks, which he said were the consequences of performing research on animals.
However, Santa Cruz Police Chief Howard Skerry declined to confirm whether investigators believed ALF was responsible.
"We do know people have spoken out about this," he told reporters at a news conference. "We don't know if it was committed by a group."
Police said one person was treated at a hospital after a firebomb was lit on the porch of molecular biologist's home. The researcher and his family were forced to escape from a second-story window Saturday morning. Also that morning, a firebomb gutted a car belonging to another researcher.
Skerry said Monday that investigators had recovered an "enormous amount of forensic evidence" from the attack scenes and vowed, "we're not going to stop until we find those responsible."
Last week, authorities said they found animal rights pamphlets at a Santa Cruz coffeehouse warning scientists it accused of being "animal abusers" that, "We know where you live." The pamphlets included the address of the biologist whose home was burned.
Protesters have targeted researchers at UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz in recent years.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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