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Mom Arrested After Son Makes Dry Ice "Bombs"
formfeed writes "Police were called to a house in Omaha where a 14-year-old made some 'dry ice bombs' (dry ice in soda bottles). Since his mom knew about it, she is now facing felony charges for child endangment and possession of a destructive device. From the article: 'Assistant Douglas County Attorney Eric Wells said the boy admitted to making the bomb and that his mother knew he was doing so. The boy was set to appear Tuesday afternoon in juvenile court, accused of possessing a destructive device.'" She's lucky they didn't find the baking soda volcano in the basement.
This lets me tell one of my favorite stories (which probably isn't all that funny.)
I have a friend who is a physicist. He was hanging around with his brother, who worked at a bookstore. They were doing essentially the same thing, but with liquid nitrogen, behind the store. After one particularly loud bottle explosion, they went back into the store, only to hear a loud pounding on the door shortly thereafter.
Opening the door, they were faced with a Baltimore County police officer, who demanded an explanation. My friend started to explain: "Oh, it's OK Officer, I'm a physicist..." As if that explained everything. Which, to be honest, probably does.
I make that joke more often than you could imagine at the physicists at work.
But in all seriousness, this continues what I've been calling the "war on curiosity". Recently, I accidentally picked a flight that had a stopover (that's what I get for clicking through the website too fast.) So while I was bored and waiting on the plane, I wandered up next to the front row of seats and peered into the cockpit. I was there for a minute or so, until the flight attendant came up in a fairly huffy attitude, and told me that I couldn't congregate in the front of the plane. Which was on the ground. With the engine shut off. With the wheels chocked. And the pilot sitting in his seat.
I'm afraid anymore to walk to the end of the platform and look down the subway tunnels. I'm afraid to take pictures of bridges. I'm afraid to be just plain curious, because it's apparently abnormal and suspicous. It's getting ridiculous. And it's going to come back and bite us in the butt.
We used to have a lot of fun with these in high school. We would put them under the bleachers during high school football games. Harmless fun... Mostly...
I reckon about 90% of all Slashdotters made/did way more dangerous things when they were younger. I certainly did and I look forward to doing them with my kids too! It's like a ritual part of childhood in my family!
Is popping balloons also illegal in this neighborhood?
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Society needs to figure out that it can't have it both ways. You can't desire educated kids without giving them the freedom to explore, particularly so long as the damage they do is limited to their own lives and property. Alpha double plusses require a large bottle, right?
So dry ice in a plastic soda bottle constitutes a "bomb" these days? I mean, I suppose you could "put an eye out" with it, but it's not really what I would call a "bomb". Are the police just stupid, or is the prosecuting attorney delving into hyperbole?
Proverbs 21:19
The kid was probably plotting to wire a case of mentos and coca-cola to drench his neighborhood in sudsy death...
Be thankful they weren't taking photographs too, or they'd be looking at 25 in PMITA.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It does pack a wallop!
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
If over pressurizing a container until it explodes is a felony, make sure your kids don't:
1) Blow up a finished juice box and stomp on it.
2) Blow up a plastic bag and hit it.
3) Blow up and pop a balloon.
4) Pop bubble packaging wrap.
5) Blowing and popping bubble gum.
Those are all variations on the same theme. Now I get it, dry ice "bombs" can cause injury if used without a tiny bit of common sense. But then again, a staircase can be deadly if used incorrectly. But yes, I see the "safety" factor, but a felony? Are we serious?
Maybe if you had blown some shit up as a child you'd be a better troll today.
That's the weak point of this particular law. It's one of those "vague, let the officers interpret it" laws, so in reality, the law isn't determining if what you are doing is illegal, the officers are, and that's not how the legal system is supposed to work.
If they wanted to drag this out, I'm sure their lawyer could mount their main attack on "destructive device" and pull a win, because it would be trivial to show that the term could apply to a wide variety of things that no reasonable person would consider unlawful. Once you show a law can be used to convict even one innocent person, the law becomes unenforceable in court.
They probably will simply get the charges dropped, because the cops usually like having vague laws like that on the books because it allows them to make more flexible judgement calls. (which can be good OR bad for the public, and that's the problem) They won't want this to go to court because they'll lose their bad (but useful) law if it does. Or at least get a precedent set against it on the books.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Wow - it's a good thing he wasn't caught releasing internally produced methane and igniting it. Mom could have been charged with feeding him beans.
This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
"Enemy of freedom and democracy". Citizens could arrest legislators, judges, heads of state, and law enforcement persons for violating the principles of a free and libertarian democracy.
The charges would be adjudicated by all citizens of the town, state, or country (whichever scope was more appropriate). If a majority of those voting agreed to convict, then the person in question would be banished or, if he so chose, could cut down a tree with a herring.
only outlaws will have Mentos.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Now, I recognize I do not know the whole story - but this kind of pisses me off, to be honest. It looks to me, like this was either an experiment or just plain fun. I recognize that the cops would be called for such a loud noise, but an arrest is ridiculous; and, it seems most people here agree. Should we do something about it, or just mock it?
Contact Juvenile Division
Contact Criminal Division
Comprehensive solutions via a competition of ideas like no other.
We did something similar in our teen years while working at a recreation center with a soccer ball.
Having found a spare soccer ball and with one of those desktop mounted air pumps we would put an increasing amount of pressure into the soccer ball and then the guys would bounce the thing around the gym. This went in stages, a little more pressure, the guys would go back to kicking the ball around the building, then back for more air pressure...
After seven or eight of these cycles of increasing pressure in the soccer ball it took on a distinct metallic sound when bouncing. The soccer ball had about 115 PSI in it and the guys decided to kick it around the hallway that connected several of the rooms in the recreation center. I was watching the fun and one of the guys kicked the ball and it hit the edge of a table and was bouncing up and down on top of the table. From 25 feet away I could hear brittle cracking sounds coming from the ball... At the last instant I have the picture of one of the guys running away from the ball with a look of fear on his face. Right at that moment the ball exploded like a bomb.
The sound of the explosion just left my ears with a buzzy, ringing sound as the guys are laughing their asses off. Quickly they grabbed all of the soccer ball shrapnel and hid it right as the senior citizens group was pouring out of their meeting room. There were retirees who must have served in WW II who were looking for the 250 pound bomb crater or airplane crash, asking furious questions about where the bomb went off.
To their credit, the guys just looked quizzically at the senior citizens and said "what noise?".
Doing a post mortem on the soccer ball one of the sewn panels failed and ejected the air bladder from the ball. The soccer ball skin was turned inside out. There were tiny little shards of rubber ball liner everywhere.
Kids do stupid stuff. Outlaw CO2 (since it is a greenhouse gas and eeevil too). Adults will not stop the never-ending quest by kids for things that go BOOM!
Tisha Hayes
Wow, is this what we're coming to? When I was a kid (34 now) I did all kinds of stuff that would now get someone in my family put in jail. It's not like I never got caught, it's just that people understood what 'boys will be boys' meant back then. Sure I didn't personally make a bomb (I would have) but you could have locked me up many times over for incendiary devices, or as I got older, reckless driving.
It's sad that it's come to this. How many of the worlds smartest people did dangerous things when they were kids? How many electrical engineers played with electricity? How many fire fighters played with fires? How many SWAT team members shot guns and made bombs? How many architects, civil engieers or constructions workers built forts out of wood the re-appropriated from their neighbors fences? How many lemon-aid stand kids are now rich capitalists?
Our government now only promotes mediocrity, not excellence.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Contrary to the humorous jokes about popping balloons, mentos and coke, etc- these do have significant explosive force. When they're at full pressure they can maim. While the first google search of "dry ice bomb accident" turns up a youtube video of a small bottle, one can also see videos from Mythbusters where they used 2 liter containers.
Very quickly you can see that putting one of these inside of a mailbox can do serious damage.
These are no different than the drain bombs of my 'youth' when kids were stuffing them in mailboxes everywhere. Those did cause serious injuries- given the reaction of the lye and the shrapnel from the explosions.
Should Mom be charged? No, she shouldn't, and there should be some common sense applied. But since a 14 year old can't exactly buy dry ice (at least not at the places I fill my CO2 tanks at) then she was supplying him- and if she wasn't supervising him doing this... there is a degree of recklessness that needs to be addressed.
Maybe she doesn't understand how dangerous these things can be? I doubt the kid was wearing a face shield with gloves and an apron to protect himself incase of premature detonation.
As a society we all would pay if this child was injured. That's the overriding concern- and society would be screaming right now if the police had showed up, said "Oh, OK, keep at it" and left... and then the kid was in an accident and cost (lets say an eye) his sight.
You can't have it both ways.
Criminal Division
1701 Farnam Street
Hall of Justice, Suite # 100
Omaha, NE 68183
(402) 444-7040
In situations like this, public outcry and shame against those who infringe on freedom is a useful tool. Shame is underutilized as a form of social change. We should change that and complain to anyone connected with this charge. Loudly. So rather than posting here impotently, Call the Douglas County Attorney's office and state that this charge is an assault freedom
Man... I guess I there's a good point to having grown up in the 80's. I used to make pressure bombs with Drano and aluminum foil in Shwepps Club Soda bottles, drop chlorine tablets into mason jars of brake fluid, this dry ice stunt, nitric acid and sulphur mixes... played with a lot of black poweder and model rocket engines.... it all fueled my love of chemistry at a young age and I never had the cops appear. Have you seen the constituents of today's chemistry sets???? Pathetic. Is model rocketry with solid propellent engines still allowed as a hobby anymore? I was shocked to go to a Wal-Mart recently and discover they didn't sell Testor model paints!
A childhood friend of mine lived at the end of a culdasac at the top of a hill with a manhole cover in the center. We must have been about 14 and had been lighting fireworks off for several years.
We just discovered how awesome "Artillery Shells" are when you light them off but don't put them in the tube. One of us decided that we had to know what they sounded like when they exploded while in the manhole. So we proceeded to throw about 6-10 of them down there and they did sound really cool.
My friends mom came home. Thank [deity of choice] that we ran out of artillery shells and had put the manhole cover back. We were just throwing bottle rockets and black cats down the little pry hole at this point. She exploded, no pun intended, on us and had a police officer come over and tell us: "If even the smallest spark got down there you would ignite the explosive sewer gas and blow the whole block up!" We tried not to laugh and rolled our eyes.
Kids do stupid stuff
It can't be summed up any better than that.