As Palm Springs reels in wake of clinic bombing, authorities name suspect and say city is safe
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PALM SPRINGS — Less than 24 hours after a bomb explosion Saturday outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic was classified as an intentional act of terrorism, authorities named a suspect and assured visitors and residents that Palm Springs is safe.
Authorities revealed the suspect as Guy Edwards Bartkus, 25, a Twentynine Palms resident. Bartkus is believed to have died in the blast. Authorities searched his home last night and this morning.
The bombing, which shattered the Saturday morning quiet and caused damage blocks away, left many residents thinking they felt an earthquake.
“Yesterday, a man intent on harming others in our city failed. Palm Springs survived, and we are stronger and more resilient,” Palm Springs Police Chief Andrew Mills said Sunday.
Mills said there was “no continuing threat” to the community and assured residents and visitors of their safety.
But there is a lengthy investigation ahead, as well as extensive damage to American Reproductive Centers, a fertility clinic and in vitro fertilization lab across the street from Desert Regional Medical Center. An office building two blocks from the blast had its windows blown out, as did a Denny’s restaurant five blocks away.
A suspected bomb blast that authorities believe was ‘an intentional act of terrorism’ outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic left one person dead and additional people injured.
American Reproductive Centers is “Coachella Valley’s first and only full-service fertility center and IVF lab,” led by board-certified Dr. Maher A. Abdallah, according to its website.
The site says that the clinic has helped more than 2,000 families become parents and highlights its work with LGBTQ+ families. Mills, the police chief, spoke directly to the “IVF community” during the Sunday news conference, saying “the city is in your court” and describing the embryos housed at the clinic as future community leaders.
“This was a place of hope. This is a building people go to to start and expand families,” Palm Springs Mayor Pro Tem Naomi Soto said. “This is a building where hope lives.”
Former patients expressed horror at what happened.
“All he’s doing is giving women hope to have babies,” former patient Staci Franklin said of Abdallah, whose clinic helped her get pregnant with her daughter, now 16.
Franklin said she and her husband spent the hours after the explosion debating possible motives, speculating about a disgruntled patient or an extremist from the far fringe of the antiabortion movement, who might have sought to destroy embryos to “make a statement.”
“If that was their motivation, I’m glad they failed,” she said.
Former American Reproductive Centers patient Jaclyn Ferber Calonne was at a baby shower when she started receiving text messages about the explosion outside the fertility clinic.
As a new mother to an infant, she said she immediately thought about the people whose eggs or embryos could have been endangered or damaged in the blast. She also thought about the clinic staff who had cared for her and her husband while they were undergoing IVF.
She said she had never seen protesters outside the clinic. Especially in a city that welcomes and celebrates diversity, she said it had never crossed her mind that the facility could be a target of violence.
“When you’re going through fertility challenges, there is so much that is out of your control, and the last thing on your mind is, ‘Oh my gosh, what if my fertility clinic blows up?’” she said. “That’s not something you should have to worry about on top of all the other things that you can’t control.”
“Thank God today happened to be a day that we have no patients,” Abdallah said.
The explosion damaged the practice’s office space, where it conducts consultations with patients, but left the IVF lab and the stored embryos there unharmed, Abdallah told the wire service.
The clinic referred to the incident as a “vehicle explosion” in a statement posted on Facebook. It said it would be open and fully operational on Monday.
“This moment has shaken us — but it has not stopped us,” the statement said. “We will continue to serve with strength, love, and the hope that brings new life into the world.”
The blast was reportedly felt more than two miles away and severely damaged the clinic and several other buildings. The incident occurred just before 11 a.m. at North Indian Canyon Drive near East Tachevah Drive, Palm Springs officials said.
Authorities did not offer a motive for the incident.
FBI Assistant Director for Los Angeles Akil Davis said the agency’s joint terrorism investigators were on the scene.
An internal briefing circulated Saturday afternoon by senior officials within the Los Angeles Police Department and viewed by The Times noted that the FBI had confirmed the suspect was the sole fatality. That briefing also said police had found two rifles — an AK-47 and an AR-platform rifle — along with ammunition next to the exploded vehicle.
As the day progressed, the investigation moved 50 miles northeast to Twentynine Palms, where residents reported law enforcement had cordoned off a section of desert tract homes, some wielding axes, in what appeared to be a search for explosives.
Tim Prendergast, co-owner at the gallery Christopher Anthony Ltd., was about two blocks away from the explosion site at his business. He first felt the shock wave hit the building and thought it was the start of an earthquake.
“But of course, once I felt, heard the explosion, then I knew it wasn’t an earthquake,” he said.
He ran down the street to the explosion site, following a black cloud of smoke, and arrived there in a few minutes. He saw a vehicle on fire and the medical building engulfed in flames. There were multiple people walking around the area in a daze. Some were bloodied but able to stand.
Then he came across body parts in the street.
Times staff writer Paige St. John contributed to this report.
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