Glorified Firecrackers
by digby
I was thinking about all this talk of zero tolerance for gel-filled bras on airplanes and the like when I turned on Rhandi Rhodes today and she was talking about this. I’d forgotten all about it:
August 12th, 2005, OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A University of Oklahoma student was released on $10,000 bail Thursday after appearing in federal court to be formally accused of a felony for allegedly bringing a small explosive device into Will Rogers World Airport.
Federal agents arrested Charles Alfred Dreyling Jr., 24, on Wednesday at a security checkpoint after a Transportation Security Administration employee noticed something suspicious in his carryon luggage as it went through an X-ray machine about 9:30 a.m., FBI spokesman Gary Johnson said.
The device was described in an FBI affidavit as a carbon dioxide cartridge filled with gunpowder that could be detonated when connected to a power source such as the batteries Dreyling had in his electric razor and in his cell phone, which were also in his carryon bag.
An FBI bomb technician concluded the device could detonate with sufficient force to cause serious injury.
Dreyling faces a federal charge of trying to get on an aircraft with an explosive device. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
He was released to the custody of his mother, Vicki Dreyling. His terms of release include living at his parents’ home in north Oklahoma City and a 10 p.m. curfew.
Dreyling appeared in federal court wearing an orange Oklahoma County jail jumpsuit and orange flip-flops. About twenty friends and family members attended the hearing in a show of support for Dreyling.
Former Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys, who is Dreyling’s landlord and his longtime friend, also came to the hearing.
Humphreys said Dreyling had created a ”glorified firecracker” and then forgotten that it was in his luggage.
[…]
Dreyling told authorities that he had made the device and said it was ”basically a pipe bomb,” according to an affidavit. Dreyling said he built the device for entertainment value, never intending to hurt anyone, and forgot that it was in his carryon bag when he brought it to the airport, the affidavit said.
Dreyling said he learned as a teenager how to build homemade explosives from Web sites like ”The Anarchist’s Cook Book.” Dreyling said he has built and detonated several explosive devices for recreational purposes, according to the affidavit.
He also told authorities that he had a bag of gunpowder, an empty carbon dioxide cartridge, and several ignitors in his Norman residence, according to the affidavit.
”I know Charlie Dreyling quite well,” Humphreys said. ”I’ve known him since he was in the first grade. I appreciate what the authorities are doing making our airlines safe.
”I have every confidence that they’ll find out Charlie Dreyling is a fine young man and no terrorist.
”He had a little explosive device, and boys like to see things go bang. He took it down to an outing at the lake, left it in his bag, forgot it and went to the airport.”
His charges were reduced to a misdemeanor and he was let off with a fine. But then he is a good Republican white boy and shouldn’t have his life ruined over a little potential explosion on an airplane.
(Meanwhile, it’s getting to the point where everyone is going to have to fly naked. As Amato says, it gives new meaning to the phrase “snakes on a plane.”)
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