A man has been detained after setting off an explosive device at a courthouse in Santa Maria, California, injuring five people, authorities said.
The explosion came “from an intentionally set improvised explosive device”, wrote Raquel Zick, the Santa Barbara county sheriff public information officer, on Wednesday.
The courthouse is closed for the day and city buildings surrounding the courthouse are temporarily closed, according to a post from the city of Santa Maria, which is located in California’s central coast region and has a population of about 110,000 people.
The sheriff’s department initially said two people sustained non-life-threatening injuries, but Sandy Doucette, a spokesperson for Marian regional medical center, said the hospital was treating five patients in connection with the explosion. Two were in good condition and three in fair condition on Wednesday morning, Doucette said, without providing details of their injuries.
Noozhawk, a local online news outlet in Santa Barbara county, reported that a suspect had thrown a bag in an arraignment courtroom, and that the bag had exploded. The suspect was in custody, the outlet said.
Another local news outlet, CalCoastNews, reported that a man opened the door and began screaming that the FDA was poisoning 900,000 people every year before throwing a suspected explosive into the courtroom.
This news comes as violent threats against judges in the US continue to rise. The National Center for State Courts, a non-profit representing the justice system in the United States, reported that federal judges, prosecutors and court officials faced more than 4,500 threats in 2021, a 400% increase since 2015.
This June, the Senate passed a bill that would create a new resource center to provide threat monitoring and training for judges and personnel in state and local courts amid the increase in threats.
The explosion in Santa Barbara comes at the heels of a violent threat against six of the nine US supreme court justices, leading to one arrest. On Friday, Panos Anastasiou, 76, was federally indicted for allegedly sending more than 465 threatening messages, including assassination and torture threats, as well as racist and homophobic language, to the supreme court, according to the justice department.
The day before, a judge in Kentucky was fatally shot in his courthouse chambers, and the local sheriff was charged with murder in the killing.
Support for political as well as judicial violence in the US is spreading at a time of heightened partisanship and misinformation, with lawmakers concerned over potential disruptions to the upcoming presidential election.
In California, lawmakers are reviewing a bill that would remove the reimbursement cap for Congress members who install home or office security systems after verified threats to their safety. Under the current law, they can only be reimbursed up to $5,000 over their entire career. The proposed law would also extend this coverage to family members, as officials often face threats against their loved ones, too.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
