Palm Springs – The suspect was temporarily identified by the FBI as Guy Edward Bartkus, 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus, a bombing at the Palm Springs fertility clinic on Sunday.
The FBI is temporarily named Guy Edward Bartkus, 25, and is the main suspect in the bomb attack.
(FBI)
FBI officials said Battercus appeared to have been killed in an explosion at the U.S. Reproductive Center on Saturday morning.
“We believe he is the subject of vehicle discovery,” said Akil Davis, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.
Davis said investigators believe the suspect was trying to live stream the attack, which he described as “the biggest bombing scene we encountered in Southern California”, condemning the 2018 explosion in Aliso Viejo in 2018.
Law enforcement sources told The Times that the bomber used a large amount of explosives – many bombs that destroyed his body – and may not intend to be killed in the explosion. They also said the suspect appeared to be “anti-life”, a kind of “anti-primitive” who believed that reproduction was immoral or unreasonable and interacted with like-minded people on social forums. In addition, he appears to have reacted to the recent death of his friend, the source said.
They said investigators are looking at a range of online evidence that could be linked to bombing, including social media, manifesto posted online, and YouTube accounts that mention explosives – the latter is still being verified.
A website that does not contain a name but appears related to bombing, lists cases of “war against loved ones” and says it will target fertilization clinics.
The website begins by saying, “Here you can download the recorded stream of my suicide and bombing IVF clinics, but such files do not exist. The website elevates the philosophical debris from “abolitionist vegetarians,” human opposition to all animal use, and “negative utilitarianism”, the notion that people should take to minimize pain rather than maximize pain in the world.
“Basically, I am a pro-constructor,” the author wrote, referring to a marginal philosophical position that is best suited to all beings to die as soon as possible to prevent future suffering.
Times cannot independently confirm that Bartkus produced the website. Domain data shows that the site was created in February.
Davis declined to confirm whether the declaration was written by the suspect, adding that his team was “tracking possible declarations as part of our ongoing investigation”.
Bartkus lives in Twentynine Palms, home to the Marine Air Combat Center, which is touted as the largest Marine Training Base in the world. But Bartcus is not the Marine Corps, said Marine Corps spokesman Yvonne Carlock.
The Times has not yet been able to verify whether Batkus has any other affiliation with the base, which may allow him to access the explosives.
Part of the Palm Canyon drive was blocked after the fertility clinic exploded.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
In the manifesto, the author condemns those who bring human life into the world and announces the ultimate goal of “disinfecting this disease of life.”
“As long as people believe that it is not a zero-sum game that causes meaningless torture, and that it will never or partly clean up,” the website said.
The site comes with a 30-minute audio file labeled “Pre”, which begins with the speaker, who said he would explain “why I decided to bomb an IVF building or clinic.
“Basically, it’s just me being angry at my presence and you know, no one agrees to bring me here,” the speaker said.
When the bomb exploded, the clinic was surrounded by other medical buildings and was closed. Although the bomb ripped the building in half, the clinic’s directors said no embryos were harmed.
“Our labs – including all eggs, embryos and reproductive materials – are still completely safe and undamaged,” the company said in a statement posted online. “Our mission has always been to help build families, and in times like this we remember how fragile and precious life is.”
Leonard Perez, a retired LA Police lieutenant and explosives expert, said federal investigators will search the scene for any bomb residue and then “work backward” to determine which type of material the suspect has used. He said that until such tests are completed, investigators will not be able to infer the source of the explosion based solely on the size of the explosion crater.
“It could be a homemade device or military-grade explosives,” Perez said. “This is one of the questions investigators have to determine: Can he use these materials?”
Perez said investigators will also conduct a rigorous background check on Bartkus, which will turn his life upside down to show how and when the explosives came.
“What is their background? Where do they work?” Perez said, listing some questions investigators seek to answer. “What can they use? What can their families use?”
The author carries a manifesto on the website and hides in the basic regulations of the website, citing the death of a person who recently claimed to be a close friend “Sophie”. References match the April 20 death of a Washington woman who allegedly shot her request in her request.
The Times reviewed law enforcement announcement said the suspect seemed to have become even more frustrated after the recent death of a female friend.
In the manifesto, the author said: “I never had much to do with someone and could not imagine that I would be again. Transparent
The website advises the two to reach an agreement: “If one of us dies, the other may soon follow,” the author wrote. “It’s too big when you don’t have anyone else who really relate to it.”
Brian Levin, founder of the Center for Hate and Extremism Research, said in a professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino that many in the community had connections with suspects after reviewing the manifesto, and the author seemed to be part of the growing number of estranged lonely actors excited by the lone actors on a vague internet site.
“He is with a specific anti-primitive movement that condemns violence,” Levine said. “Nevertheless, his so-called unrealistic, trait-like ‘political’ statement paints a very different picture – a desperately unstable young man whose suicide despair plunges him into a cruel death of self-expenditure, which proves justified by the obscure embrace of relatives who distorted by an individual against ideology.”
Over the past two decades, a cascading of young male loners (few adults) have erupted extreme violence over the past two decades due to social distancing, unrestrained online radicalization and aggressiveness, and unresolved psychological distress.
Levin said historically, it would be even more difficult for a person to verify and legitimize an obscure ideology and gain knowledge to carry out such an attack.
“Today, we basically have a DIY ecosystem where lonely people can engage in behaviors that were previously more inclined toward groups and small cells,” Levine said. “There is a whole cauldron that involves radicalization, misinformation, a way to legalize violence into such a center of complaints, and that’s what you have.”
Investigators were at Bartkus’ home within hours of Saturday’s explosion.
Officials investigated the home of twenty-six palm-containing Guy Edwards Bartcus.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies asked residents on one end of the community to leave their homes while cleaning up the explosion radius and then wait for a judge’s warrant to search the house kidnapped by the bomb suspect.
An online address catalog shows that Bartkus has used the house since 2019.
Jeanette Hogan said she didn’t know Bartkus’ name, who lived directly across the street and hadn’t seen a resident in months. “We’ve never seen him, so it’s all shocking for us,” Hogan said. “It’s a little disturbing to know that our neighbors are doing such a evil thing.
“Thank goodness it’s a Saturday and they don’t have any patients.”
Thomas Bickel, who lives directly behind the suspect’s house, also said he had never met Bartkus. He said the sheriff’s deputies asked him to leave the house at about 1 p.m., and then he went to the cactus bar to wait for a search.
Eight hours later, Bicker was still there, caring for beer on the terrace, watching federal agents on the street enter and exit the suspect’s house. At one point, they sent a robot into the house, while the drone and a helicopter were hovering overhead.
A FBI agent whose vehicle was parked on the periphery told Bickel that the bomb used in Palm Springs was “large”. A veteran of Bickel’s service in Afghanistan said he was familiar with the destructive power of roadside bombs.
“I’m not saying this in a positive way, but someone who knows what they’re doing.”
The explosion damaged the office at a fertility clinic in Palm Springs on Saturday.
(Eric Thayer/AP)
The car explosion was so big that it tore the clinic and blocked debris, broke windows in a nearby hospital while pushing the suspect’s crumpled car along the other direction in the rear parking lot.
Nick Jacob Sivetz was about 9 blocks in the graffitiyard when he heard the explosion. He said his roommate also heard explosions at his home about six miles away.
Sivetz ran to the scene and found the business, the windows were blown open and debris were scattered across the road. He said that in the chaos, many residents believed a gasoline explosion occurred.
“I would say the whole city is shaking,” Sievez said. “It’s surprising for a lot of people, especially in such a quiet city.”
Palm Springs’ reputation as an inclusive community, and the work of the American Reproductive Center, assisting same-sex couples with proxies to have children, sparked early fears that the attack was a hate crime against the LGBTQ community.
“In the past few years, fertility treatments, including IVF, have become increasingly politicized by far-right extremists,” California Director of Equality Tony Hoang said in a statement to the media.
“When you get health care, no one should worry about their safety.”
The Melody Gutierrez contributed to this report.
