According to people familiar with the case, a Washington man facing terrorist charges in connection with the explosion of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs died after jumping off a balcony within a federal prison facility in Los Angeles.
Daniel Park, 32, was found unresponsive in the Metropolitan Detention Centre in downtown Los Angeles at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, according to officials.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner has yet to announce the cause of death. Two people, who were not authorised to discuss the death, told The Times that information gathered indicates Park climbed onto a surface and then leaped off a high balcony, killing himself. TMZ.com was the first to announce the cause of death.
“Responding employees initiated life-saving measures, and emergency medical services were requested while life-saving measures were continued,” according to a Department of Justice statement. “Mr. Park was transported by EMS to a local hospital and subsequently pronounced deceased by hospital personnel.”
No one else was wounded, and no other information on the cause of death was immediately available.
Park had been in federal detention since his arrest at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport earlier this month, on charges of giving and attempting to provide material support to a terrorist.
He was suspected of assisting Guy Edward Bartkus obtain 270 pounds of ammonium nitrate, an explosive precursor that can be used to make homemade bombs.
Bartkus, 25, is suspected of setting up a bomb at American Reproductive Centres on May 17, killing himself and injuring four others. The bomb created a 250-yard debris field.
Authorities said Park fled the United States for Europe days after the explosion occurred. Polish authorities eventually apprehended him and extradited him back to the United States, where he was arrested upon arrival in New York. When confronted by Polish officials, Park attempted suicide, according to an FBI document. Park had his first federal court appearance in Brooklyn before being transported to Los Angeles.
Park was accused of mailing approximately 180 pounds of ammonium nitrate in January and then paying for an additional 90 pounds of the poison to be transported to Bartkus in the days preceding the Palm Springs attack.
According to US Attorney Bill Essayli, the senior federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, Park visited Bartkus in Twentynine Palms for two weeks in late January and early February. According to a federal criminal complaint, three days before Park arrived at his home, Bartkus researched how to create big explosions with ammonium nitrate and fuel.
According to FBI Assistant Director for Los Angeles Akil Davis, Park held similar ideas to Bartkus and discussed them on internet forums dating back to 2016.
FBI case investigators and criminal enforcement sources describe Bartkus as having “antinatalist” beliefs.
“They don’t believe people should exist,” Davis stated.
According to Davis, search warrants executed at Park’s apartment in Kent, Wash., following the bombing enabled agents to identify his role in the explosion.
Davis said that six containers of ammonium nitrate were transported from Park in Seattle to Bartkus. He stated that officials are awaiting the results of a study of the explosive precursor materials supplied from Park.
The FBI described the Palm Springs blast, which was powerful enough to destroy buildings several blocks away, as “probably the largest bombing scene that we’ve had in Southern California,” surpassing the 2018 bombing of an Aliso Viejo day spa.
