No one was injured when the device was detonated just before 11 a.m. Tuesday on the exterior wall of a barber shop, which shares a building with the NAACP. The blast charred the wall, but no other damage was reported. A gasoline can that was placed next to the device did not ignite.
FBI agents on Wednesday afternoon were still searching for a balding white man in his 40s. Witnesses reported seeing a man matching that description leave the scene in a white pickup truck.
— tweeeeeeeeett (@Gift2USA) January 7, 2015
Henry Allen Jr., the chapter president, declined to call the explosion a hate crime without additional information from investigators, which included agents from the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
"We believe in civil rights for all, and really we won't work in fear and we won't be deterred," Allen told local newspaper The Gazette. "We'll move on. This won't deter us from doing the job we want to do in the community."
According to the FBI, it is not known if the NAACP was the target of the explosion, or if it was motivated by racial tensions brought by the police killing of two unarmed black men in Missouri and New York last year, or the killing of two New York City police officers last month.
The NAACP national chapter on Tuesday released the following statement: “The NAACP looks forward to a full and thorough investigation into this matter by federal agents and local law enforcement.”
Two employees, including owner Gene Southerland, and a customer were inside the barbershop at the time of the explosion. Meanwhile, at least two people were inside the NAACP office.
“It was such a beautiful day and everything, sunny. And in broad daylight, you hear this explosion. It's frightening,” Southerland told The Gazette.
