Arthur Rosenbaum discovered a plastic container of orange coloured liquid beneath his BMW parked in front of his Los Angeles house on the morning of Sunday 24 June 2007. A rag was dangling from a small opening of a container next to a matchbook, with a half smoked cigarette inserted through the matches.

Rosenbaum, a paediatric ophthalmologist at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) well known for developing innovative surgical techniques for eye muscle disorders and who had treated more than 10 000 children in his 36 years at UCLA, telephoned the police. Bomb experts said that the container was an “incendiary device that, had the fuse not failed to light, was powerful enough to have destroyed the auto.” Anti-animal research extremists claimed responsibility, stating that Rosenbaum had been targeted because of “vile and evil things he does to primates at UCLA.”