Federal Indian Agency Offices in Riverside Damaged by Bomb Blast

A bomb exploded just before dawn at the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs offices here Tuesday, causing extensive property damage but no injuries.

No one had claimed responsibility for the bombing by Tuesday evening, and Bureau of Indian Affairs officials said no threats or warnings of any kind had been received in recent days.

“It’s all a big mystery to us at this point,” said Steve Gleason, an aide to Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Eddie Brown in Washington. “Everyone is just perplexed.”

An FBI spokesman in Los Angeles confirmed that an investigation is under way by that agency. The spokesman, Jim Neilson, added that investigators will examine whether Tuesday’s bombing is linked to the explosion of a pipe bomb last week on the Morongo Indian Reservation near Banning.

Damage from the Morongo bombing, which occurred at 2 a.m. Friday outside the reservation’s administrative center, totaled about $4,000 and consisted mostly of broken windows and punctured walls.

“At this time, we don’t believe the two events are related,” said Riverside County Sheriff’s Capt. Jake Bowser, who is leading the Morongo investigation.

Bowser said so far there are no suspects or known motives in the reservation incident.

Tuesday’s explosion at the Bureau of Indian Affairs offices occurred at about 5:20 a.m., a time when none of the agency’s 40 employees was at work. The blast was not discovered until about two hours later, when an employee arrived to find the receptionist area and an adjacent office in the agency’s second-story suite nearly destroyed, Riverside police spokesman Pete Esquivel said.

Esquivel said police received numerous calls at 5:20 a.m. from residents who reported hearing a loud boom.

All businesses in the two-story building, located next to the Riverside Freeway at 3600 Lime St., were closed for the day as bomb experts with the Riverside Police Department began the tedious job of sifting through broken glass and other debris. No monetary estimate of the damage was provided.

Though the explosion caused no fire, walls were blown out, windows were shattered and the floor had gaping holes, agency officials said. A business on the building’s ground floor also sustained moderate damage.

Police declined to specify the type or strength of device used in the attack. But Bureau of Indian Affairs officials said they were told that the explosion was caused by a pipe bomb placed outside the front door of the suite, where the agency’s Southern California field office, which serves 23 tribes, has been located for five years.

Ron Jaeger, the agency’s area director for California, said employees were placed on administrative leave until their quarters can be repaired.

Jaeger said he saw no connection between Tuesday’s incident and a recent spate of mail and package bombings aimed at judges, courts, attorneys and civil rights organizations in the South.

“I just don’t see a link,” Jaeger said.