On Friday, the FBI released a sketch of the “person of interest” wanted for setting off a crude incendiary device at a building that houses a barber shop and the NAACP. The device was placed next to a gas can. It apparently sparked and then fizzed or something, failing to set the gas alight. The device was placed on the opposite side of the building from the NAACP offices, leading many to suspect the target of the vandalism may have been the barbershop. Read former NYPD officer-turned-investigating blogger John Cardillo’s January 9 tweets for some of the earliest, best reporting on the incident. For now, authorities have offered a $10,000 reward for the suspect, described as a balding white man, about 40 years old, driving an old white pickup — or, in other words, someone who looks like about a quarter of the Colorado Springs population, as observers and authorities have noted. The Twittersphere decided the suspect looks most like an alien.
The owner of the barbershop in the building is adamant that no one has the kind of beef with his business that would spur them to bomb it – “everyone loves me,” the Denver Post reports him saying. Authorities say they’re just not sure whether the black civil rights group was the intended target of last week’s attack. Terms like “hate crime” and “domestic terror” have been floating around the incident, but they haven’t stuck. News of the horrific attack on the staff of Charlie Hebdo – which, granted, may have left particular shock and disgust in the bones of American journalists – dominated the airwaves that morning. The ongoing hunt for the bomber in Colorado Springs went largely ignored, except by Twitter. Via thedailybanter.com. “This won’t deter us from doing the job we want to do in the community,” NAACP chapter president Henry Allen Jr. told the Gazette‘s Kassondra Cloos.
On Monday, the Colorado Springs Pride Center announced it’s closing its doors after 40 years, having served thousands throughout the greater Pikes Peak region. “I feel like having a pride center here in Colorado Springs shows LGBT people that you’re supported and accepted,” local advocate and executive director of Inside/Out Youth Services Eric Pizana told the Gazette‘s Jakob Rodgers. “It’s really sad to not have that.” A local club owner formed a nonprofit to take over running the center’s biggest annual event – the gay pride parade. Regulators say the Pride Center failed to pay around $2,400 in taxes on employee wages, in addition to a pile of outstanding bills and fees. With this development, the Colorado Springs LGBTQ community loses some of the resources and representation it’s already short on.
Producers in Colorado’s film industry don’t know if the state’s promised 20 percent cash rebate will come through this year, because the Colorado Economic Development Commission is out of money for that incentive program. Anyone trying to commit to making films here can sit tight until the legislature decides how much to allot the commission. Via the Durango Herald.
[ With John Tomasic.]
