ONTARIO, Calif. -- A Colorado man on a business trip to southern California was the target of an apparent hate crime late Monday night, police said.

The victim, an as-yet unidentified 51-year-old man, is an American citizen of Middle Eastern descent.

Police said that just after 8 p.m., a Molotov cocktail filled with a flammable liquid was thrown against his hotel room window in Ontario.

The device burned the curtains of the hotel room, but most of the liquid fell onto the pavement below, according to authorities.

The victim was able to put out the curtain flames with a hotel fire extinguisher and then called for help.

Ontario police said that they're treating the incident as a hate crime and have called in the FBI.

"Right now, the idiot who did this thinks he's a patriot, but in reality he's no better than the terrorists who took down the World Trade Center, and when we get him -- and we will -- we'll treat him like the terrorist he is," Mike Macias of the Ontario police said.

The victim has returned to Colorado.

Ontario is about 40 miles east of Los Angeles.