Daniel Park, a suspect charged earlier this month in connection with the bombing outside a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, has died in federal custody, the Bureau of Prisons said Tuesday.
The 32-year-old from Seattle was found unresponsive at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, according to a statement from the Bureau of Prisons. Responding employees initiated life-saving measures, and emergency medical services transported Park to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead, the bureau said.
His cause of death wasn’t immediately clear, and the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service have been notified. No employees or other incarcerated individuals were injured, the bureau said.
Park, a U.S. citizen, had arrived at the L.A. detention center on June 13, after he was indicted for alleged malicious destruction of property. He was apprehended in Poland earlier this month after flying to Warsaw a few days after the bombing outside American Reproductive Centers fertility clinic on May 17.
He was accused of shipping approximately 180 pounds of ammonium nitrate — commonly used as a precursor to construct homemade explosives — to the bomber, who was identified by officials as 25-year-old Guy Bartkus. Bartkus died in the blast outside the fertility clinic.
“Make no mistake, this is an intentional act of terrorism,” Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said at a news briefing after the blast.
Prosecutors said evidence showed that Park and Bartkus shared nihilist beliefs. The criminal complaint filed against Park alleged the attack “was motivated by his pro-mortalism, anti-natalism, and anti-pro-life ideology, which is the belief that individuals should not be born without their consent and that non-existence is best.”
The clinic was damaged, but staff said none of the embryos stored there were lost, and the practice reopened in a temporary location.
Scott MacFarlane is CBS News’ Justice correspondent. He has covered Washington for two decades, earning 20 Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards. His reporting has resulted directly in the passage of five new laws.
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