Mike Irwin
Member
From Reuters/Yahoo
"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two homemade bombs exploded early on Thursday at the headquarters of Chiron Corp. in Northern California, shutting down operations at one of the nation's largest biotechnology companies, police said.
No injuries or major property damage was reported in the explosions, which took place at 2:55 a.m. and 4:10 a.m. Pacific time, police said.
A third device, packed in a 5-gallon plastic container, was found in front of a third building at the Chiron complex by the Alameda County Sheriff's Department and safely detonated.
"We have no suspects at the moment and nobody has taken responsibility" for the blasts, Sgt. LaJuan Collier, a spokesman for the Emeryville Police Department, told Reuters.
Collier said there were no people apparently in any of the three buildings at the time of the explosions.
A Chiron spokesman declined to speculate on who was responsible for the explosions. But spokesman John Gallagher said Chiron executives have been the subject of increasing harassment in the past month by animal rights activists.
Chiron is the biggest employer in Emeryville, a city of 7,000 people located in the San Francisco Bay Area between Oakland and Berkeley.
Local media reports have said animal-rights activists have been harassing executives of Chiron for about three months.
Protesters have left fake tombstones on executives' lawns and awakened employees and their families in the early morning hours, police told the Contra Costa Times. Some employees have changed their phone numbers and called police several times, the newspaper said.
Chiron, like other drugmakers, uses animals to test the safety and efficacy of its medicines.
Bob Canter, president of the Emeryville Chamber of Commerce (news - web sites), said all 2,000 Chiron employees in Emeryville were told to stay home on Thursday. He said two of the city's major streets were largely shut down amid the ongoing police investigation. (Additional reporting by Toni Clarke and Jed Seltzer)
"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two homemade bombs exploded early on Thursday at the headquarters of Chiron Corp. in Northern California, shutting down operations at one of the nation's largest biotechnology companies, police said.
No injuries or major property damage was reported in the explosions, which took place at 2:55 a.m. and 4:10 a.m. Pacific time, police said.
A third device, packed in a 5-gallon plastic container, was found in front of a third building at the Chiron complex by the Alameda County Sheriff's Department and safely detonated.
"We have no suspects at the moment and nobody has taken responsibility" for the blasts, Sgt. LaJuan Collier, a spokesman for the Emeryville Police Department, told Reuters.
Collier said there were no people apparently in any of the three buildings at the time of the explosions.
A Chiron spokesman declined to speculate on who was responsible for the explosions. But spokesman John Gallagher said Chiron executives have been the subject of increasing harassment in the past month by animal rights activists.
Chiron is the biggest employer in Emeryville, a city of 7,000 people located in the San Francisco Bay Area between Oakland and Berkeley.
Local media reports have said animal-rights activists have been harassing executives of Chiron for about three months.
Protesters have left fake tombstones on executives' lawns and awakened employees and their families in the early morning hours, police told the Contra Costa Times. Some employees have changed their phone numbers and called police several times, the newspaper said.
Chiron, like other drugmakers, uses animals to test the safety and efficacy of its medicines.
Bob Canter, president of the Emeryville Chamber of Commerce (news - web sites), said all 2,000 Chiron employees in Emeryville were told to stay home on Thursday. He said two of the city's major streets were largely shut down amid the ongoing police investigation. (Additional reporting by Toni Clarke and Jed Seltzer)
