Conservative group offers $15K reward for info about office arson
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The Center of the American Experiment is offering a $15,000 reward for information that leads to the conviction of whoever set fires at the office building that houses its headquarters and those of two other conservative policy advocacy groups.
Just after 2 a.m. on Jan. 28, someone broke into the building in a Golden Valley office park near Interstate 394 and Highway 169 and started two fires.
At a Thursday news conference to announce the reward, Center of the American Experiment President John Hinderaker said that one fire, which was started inside the third-floor office of the Upper Midwest Law Center destroyed the space.
“It is completely gone,” he said. “There is nothing surviving in that office.”
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The second fire, which was started in a first-floor hallway outside the offices of Center of the American Experiment and Take Charge, did not spread into the offices, and firefighters arrived quickly and doused the flames.
“The wall held. So if you look at the corridor, it’s just utterly devastated. It looks like it’s been bombed. But if you go inside our office, our office didn’t burn, but we’ve got a couple inches of water sitting on the floor,” Hinderaker said.
He said evidence indicates that gasoline was used as an accelerant.
“It was immediately obvious that this was arson. You don’t have a fire on the first floor and another fire on the third floor due to natural causes.”
Hinderaker urged anyone with information to contact the FBI Minneapolis field office at (763) 569-8000 or to submit tips online.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also investigating the fires along with local law enforcement.
Hinderaker said water damage has left the entire building unusable, and restoration work is expected to take months. He noted that the building’s elevators were destroyed, and a variety of small businesses were also displaced “for the foreseeable future.”
“The investigation is making good progress, and I believe that the criminals are going to be caught,” Hinderaker said.