(On June 24, Los Angeles police and fire investigators, assisted by UCLA police, responded to the home of a UCLA faculty member who had discovered an incendiary device under a vehicle parked at his residence. The device did not ignite. On June 27, the Animal Liberation Front issued a news release in which animal rights extremists claimed responsibility for planting the device.)

UCLA condemns in the strongest possible terms the criminal and deplorable tactics utilized by animal rights extremists in their ongoing campaign directed at UCLA faculty members and administrators. Anyone planting an incendiary device does so with the intent to kill or severely injure people or property. Criminal behavior and violent acts are abhorrent methods to attempt to achieve a political or policy goal. Those who may agree with the goals of the animal rights movement but deplore these methods, which bring their movement into disrepute, should divorce themselves from those who engage in violence, harassment and criminal acts and do what they can to bring the lawbreakers to justice.

The incendiary device found on June 24 was only the most recent development in the extremists' campaign intended to halt the use of laboratory animals in research. A firebomb intended for a faculty member's home was planted in July 2006; it did not explode. Among other harassing activities, the extremists have sent threatening e-mails and made threatening phone calls, pounded on windows and doors on campus and at faculty homes late at night, and used bullhorns and masks during demonstrations on campus and at the private residences of UCLA faculty and administrators, frightening small children and neighbors.

UCLA is cooperating fully with federal and local law enforcement agencies investigating the June 24 incident. We are committed to ensuring the safety of our faculty and their families and are aggressively pursuing local, state and federal laws to protect individuals and property, to prevent criminal behavior and illegal harassment, and to prosecute those responsible.

UCLA remains steadfast in its commitment to the lawful use of laboratory animals in research for the benefit of society. The use of animals in such research is tightly regulated under federal law and subject to federal inspection. Research involving laboratory animals has led to the development of lifesaving procedures and medicines. Discontinuing all animal research would diminish hope for millions of people with AIDS, cancer, heart disease and other maladies of humankind.

-UCLA-

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