In all the violence at American abortion clinics, no one had ever been killed by a bomb.
But a week after the 25th anniversary of the court ruling that legalized abortion, a homemade device exploded outside the New Woman All Women Clinic in this northern Alabama city Thursday, killing a security guard and critically injuring a clinic employee."This was a vicious, wicked and diabolical act," said Jim Cavanaugh, special agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "It was a smaller device intended to kill or injure."
Authorities were searching for a man in a wig seen fleeing the area after the explosion, The Birmingham News reported Friday. A witness told police the man removed the wig as he ran and dropped it into a blue bag.
A police radio advisory said the man was believed to be driving a gray 1989 Nissan pickup registered in Asheville, N.C. Based on information from authorities, the National Coalition of Abortion Providers alerted clinics in the Southeast to be on the lookout for such a truck.
"We literally looked at a map and started calling all clinics within a couple hours drive," executive director Ron Fitzsimmons said Friday.
A police spokesman, Lt. Moody Duff, declined to confirm or deny the report Friday morning as investigators resumed a sweep of the bombed clinic vicinity. "They're processing the scene and trying to gather trace evidence to reconstruct the device," said Duff.
Police officers wore a black band over their badge Friday in memory of their slain colleague.
Among those questioned by authorities was an abortion protester who was across the street when the blast occurred, said David Lackey, pro-life leader who called the explosion a "heinous act." The protester was often outside the clinic.
FBI agent Joseph Lewis said the bomb apparently was in a package. It went off about 7:30 a.m. just outside the main clinic entrance, rocking nearby buildings and leaving a large hole outside the blackened, wrecked entryway.
Killed was Robert Sanderson, 35, a Birmingham police officer who moonlighted as a guard at the clinic near the University of Alabama at Birmingham campus. He had just arrived for his shift when the bomb went off.
Sanderson is the sixth person killed in abortion clinic violence since March 1993, when a Florida doctor was shot to death during a demonstration outside a Pensacola clinic. The other four deaths were also shootings.
Both the ATF and the National Abortion Federation said the death was the first from a clinic bombing.
Emily Lyons, 41, a nurse and counselor at the clinic, suffered extensive injuries to her legs, abdomen and face, including the loss of an eye. She underwent 10 hours of surgery and was listed in critical condition Friday.