October 10, 2005
“Terrorist Attack” at Georgia Tech
Yes, apparently someone decided to make a couple of what appear to be drano bombs and cause a little minor havoc:
Three explosive devices found in a courtyard between two Georgia Tech dormitories on the East Campus Monday morning were part of a “terrorist act,” an Atlanta police official said.
One of the devices exploded, injuring the custodian who found them inside a plastic bag. Two others were detonated by a bomb squad.
The custodian suffered ringing to the ears and was treated at a local hospital. The events led to a temporary evacuation Monday morning.
“It is a terrorist act at this point and depending on the outcome of the investigation it potentially could become a federal violation as well,” said Major C.W. Moss of the Atlanta Police Department.
The custodian found the three devices about 9 a.m. in a plastic-type garbage bag, Moss said. When he picked up the bag, one exploded, as it was designed to do when handled. The explosives were made up of chemicals placed inside plastic bottles and could have seriously injured someone, officials said. Numerous agencies were on the Georgia Tech campus to search for suspects.
So let’s see if we get this right. A kid uses REAL explosives to blow himself up right outside a stadium filled with 80,000 people, with conflicting reports over whether or not he tried to enter the stadium, or whether he intended to harm anyone beyond him, and people constantly downplay the terrorist angle. After all, based on the Wikipedia article about TATP, it’s pretty unstable stuff, so it’s quite possible he was waiting for people to leave the stadium but happened to explode unexpectedly. Either way, there are a lot of unanswered questions there, and it certainly seems like it might be a terrorist act, whether or not it was related to Islamic terrorism.
But another kid screws around with a drano bomb and the first thing out of the mouth of the police is that it’s definitively a terrorist act? Now, don’t get me wrong. If they can figure out who is responsible for what happened at Georgia Tech, someone needs to go to jail. Considering the possible harm, there are lot of possible things to charge the perpetrators with, and I’d say at least a year in jail is probably about right. But let’s have a little perspective here. Al Qaeda doesn’t mix household chemicals in a soda bottle in the hopes to give custodians ringing ears. This is the work of stupid kids trying to screw around, and taking about 5 giant leaps over the line of acceptable behavior to do so. It is reckless, it is dangerous, and it is criminal, but when I think of terrorism, I think of something on a little grander scale. This isn’t a “send them to Gitmo” level offense.
1 Comment
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
They down play it because they are afraid that mommies and daddies will take their kids out of their university if they know that someone there tried to blow up the football stadium filled with students. I think I would rather warn the students to be careful of their surroundings.