White man goes to trial in bombing case at black college

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - When the first pipe bomb exploded, students at Florida A&M University were startled, but not in fear. No one was hurt and the damage was slight.

The next day, Sept. 1, the usual grind of a just-started year resumed.

On Sept. 22, another pipe bomb exploded on campus, this time accompanied by a racist phone call to a local television station warning: ''This is just the beginning.''

Although there were no injuries, news of the threat spread fear across the predominantly black college campus. The school's once idyllic city-on-a-hill atmosphere was transformed into a compound of ID checks, police checkpoints and bomb sweeps of the buildings each morning.

At the time, FAMU President Frederick Humphries said the 12,000-student campus was trying hard not to adopt a siege mentality. But as he surveyed a phalanx of police walking across the quad just before a potentially frightening fall football Saturday, he admitted: ''It's playing with the very life of our university.''

The bomb scares ended in late October after the arrest of an out-of-work former embalmer. On Monday, Lawrence Lombardi, 42, faces a jury that will decide whether he is guilty of planting two bombs in campus buildings and carrying out a hate crime. If convicted, he could face life in prison.

The federal trial was moved about 200 miles west of the university to Pensacola because U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle feared local jurors could be swayed by concerns about race relations in Tallahassee

But as prosecutors seek to convict Lombardi, a former Marine who once had a snack delivery route that took him to the FAMU campus, the fear among students has faded.

''I haven't heard a conversation about the bombing in so long,'' said Derric Heck, a senior architecture major from Brunswick, Ga., and president of the student body.

Last year, as vice president, Heck spent days meeting with college administrators about security concerns after the explosions. But as his last year of college draws to a close, Heck said he and his peers have moved on.

For Humphries and others who have lived through racial violence before say they will be watching as the justice system wrestles once again with race-based hate.

''A lot of people will be paying attention to this court case,'' Humphries said. ''People are paying attention with an eye toward: When is this kind of stuff going to end? And when are we going to respect each other?''

The prosecution's case has been kept secret and most of the court file in the case is sealed. The federal judge in Tallahassee who made that decision said some of the material is unlikely to be admissible.

Prosecutors will not comment on the case, and Lombardi's attorney, Tim Jansen, also said last week he couldn't comment before the trial.

Lombardi, whose only previous run-in with the law was a long-ago DUI, has maintained his innocence. During a pretrial hearing, Jansen said the government's case against his client was weak.

''There's no evidence he in fact manufactured any item,'' Jansen told the judge who ordered Lombardi held in prison until the trial. ''They can't prove he made the device, they can't even prove he was at FAMU.''

Police painted Lombardi as a racist whose former co-workers told them he doesn't like black people and frequently used racial slurs. Detectives said they were led to Lombardi after former co-workers identified him from a photo taken at a home improvement store and recognized his voice from a tape of the call to the TV station.

On the Net: FAMU: http://www.famu.edu/