In 1970, H. Rap Brown, a member of the Black Panthers and the fourth Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was charged with instigating a riot after a rally in Cambridge; a change in venue brought his trial to Bel Air. Two black militants drove to Bel Air in a truck laden with plastic explosives, intending to attack the courthouse. Due to heavy security at the courthouse, the two men driving the truck fled on Route 1. The explosives subsequently detonated and killed both men. The blast left a crater in the road and blew out the windows of a nearby toll house. Brown would go on to escape the night of his trial.