Missouri man gets 10 years in attempt to fire-bomb federal office

By Kevin Murphy

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuters) – A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a man to 10 years in prison without parole on charges that he tried to fire-bomb the local offices of Missouri U.S. Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver with two bottles filled with charcoal lighter fluid, officials said.

Eric King, 29, of Kansas City, pleaded guilty in early March to using explosives to commit arson at Cleaver’s offices on Sept. 11, 2014, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas City said in a statement.

The public defender representing King would have no comment on the guilty plea, a spokeswoman said.

King, a self-proclaimed anarchist, used a hammer to break a window of the unoccupied office, prosecutors said. Police said they recovered the hammer and two broken Molotov cocktails at the scene.

Security video captured King tossing the hammer and lighting items before throwing them early in the morning, prosecutors said. One bounced off the building and the other went through a window. The building was not damaged and no one was reported injured, authorities said.

Kansas City police had been investigating King related to a series of anti-government vandalism in the vicinity of Cleaver’s office a few days before the attempted fire-bombing, prosecutors said. That activity included spray painting anti-government messages on a nearby Bank of America building.

King also had left a number of posts on social media, including “these cops aren’t going to kill themselves, get to the streets,” according to the charges.

(Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City; Editing by Curtis Skinner and David Gregorio)