Researchers in Santa Cruz have been forced to flee their homes after suspected animal rights activists attacked them with what a local police chief described as “Molotov cocktails on steroids”.

“This is nothing less than a case of attempted homicide,” says Santa Cruz Chief of Police Howard Skerry. The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and UCSC police are all cooperating on the case.

The San Francisco Chronicle notes:

The attacks may mark an escalation in a series of protests against UC researchers that prompted a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to issue a temporary restraining order against three animal rights groups in February. In January, a Molotov cocktail exploded on a UCLA researcher’s porch. A month later, six people in masks tried to force their way into the home of a UC Santa Cruz researcher and hit her husband on the head, police said.

Professor David Feldheim and his family had to use a ladder to escape their house after the attacks, which also targeted another UCSC researcher (The Mercury News). The chancellor of UCSC, George Blumenthal, said, “These are odious assaults on individuals and on the principles of free inquiry by which we live.” (Statement.)