The father of Guy Edward Bartkus, the suspect in the Palm Springs in vitro fertilization facility explosion, says that he was “shocked” when a relative reached out and said his son was implicated in the bombing.
Speaking to the New York Times, Richard Bartkus said that he hadn’t seen his son in a decade. He told NYT that, growing up, Guy liked “tinkering with small model rockets” and once set the family’s home on fire while playing with matches when he was nine years old.
As a teenager, Guy would make “smoke bombs” and “stink bombs” but never anything “major.”
“Nothing like a ‘bomb’ bomb, but he’d build rockets [and] shoot them in the air,” Richard Bartkus told the outlet.
The New York Times reported that Bartkus, 75, said that his son was always “impressionable” and had often allowed himself to be “drawn in by friends who got him into trouble,” mentioning a time when one of Guy’s friends – whose parents owned a demolition yard – talked him into smashing cars there.
Guy was also a “pretty good shot” since the elder Bartkus taught him how to use firearms.
“If he told you he was going to hit the ‘C’ on a Coke can, he’d hit the ‘C’ on the Coke can,” Richard said. “Whatever he put his mind to, he was pretty good.”
By the time Guy reached his teens, he was building computers and worked with special needs children, his father elaborated.
“He wasn’t dumb, but he wasn’t a leader,” Richard, who according to NYT is a resident of Yucca Valley, said. “He was a follower. If somebody came along and said this was a good idea, he’d probably go along with it.”
The Associated Press reported before Guy Edward Bartkus was formally identified that he posted “rambling online writings” before the incident; at a press conference on Sunday, officials said said Bartkus harbored “nihilistic ideations” and that they were “tracking a possible manifesto” that could be connected to the targeted attack, which authorities also said may have been live streamed.
The explosion outside American Reproductive Centers, located at 1199 North Indian Canyon Road in Palm Springs, occurred around 11 a.m. Saturday. The blast caused extensive damage to the building and injured at least four people; however, all embryos, eggs and other materials remained intact, clinic officials and law enforcement confirmed.
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