KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia, Missouri, was intentionally set and is being investigated as a possible hate crime, the FBI said in a statement Tuesday.
The agency also said it is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for the fire early Sunday .
The FBI said surveillance video shows a person wearing dark clothing entering the Planned Parenthood-Columbia Health Center about 4:05 a.m. Sunday. When that person later walked out of the clinic, smoke could be seen coming from the building, according to the agency.
No one was inside the building when the fire was reported. The building’s sprinkler system extinguished the fire before Columbia firefighters arrived. Firefighters told police the fire was “suspicious in nature,” Columbia police said.
Federal civil rights crimes investigated by the FBI include violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which makes it a crime to intentionally damage or destroy the property of a facility because it provides reproductive health services.
The clinic remained closed Tuesday. Dr. Brandon Hill, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said in a statement Monday that the building sustained limited damage and crews are working to reopen it as soon as possible.
“Planned Parenthood Great Plains has a long history serving patients in Columbia, and we remain committed to providing a full range of sexual and reproductive health services in this community,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the organization didn’t immediately return a call Tuesday.
The Columbia clinic does not currently provide abortions because of new state regulations that took effect last year requiring abortion doctors to have admitting physician privileges at nearby hospitals. Finding a doctor with those privileges became more difficult after the University of Missouri Hospital in Columbia stopped offering the privileges in 2015.
Planned Parenthood has unsuccessfully sought a legal exemption to the requirements, leaving a clinic in St. Louis as the only one that provides abortions in Missouri.
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COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say they’re investigating a suspicious fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Missouri that is seeking to regain its ability to offer abortions.
Columbia police said officers responded to an alarm at the clinic on Sunday around 4 a.m. A small fire had started inside the structure and the building’s sprinkler system extinguished it. Firefighters told police the blaze was “suspicious in nature,” according to a statement from the police department.
No clinic staff or patients were present when the fire started, and there were no injuries, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Emily Miller said. The clinic was closed Monday amid the investigation, but the organization said the facility would reopen as soon as possible.
“We are working with law enforcement, as the source of the fire is suspicious and the incident is currently under investigation,” Miller said in a statement released Sunday.
Planned Parenthood was required to stop providing abortions at the clinic last yearafter new regulations went into effect requiring abortion doctors to have certain privileges with a nearby hospital.
The Columbia Planned Parenthood clinic has been unable to secure physician privileges or find a doctor with those privileges after a panel of medical staff at University of Missouri Health Care voted to stop offering those privileges altogether in 2015. The vote came amid a Republican-led legislative investigation on abortion in the state.
Missouri is down to one clinic offering abortions. That clinic is in St. Louis.