Judge refuses to block "bomb house" burning

[mrdmk]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday denied a request by lawyers for "bomb house" suspect George Jakubec to delay the planned incineration of the rented home he allegedly packed with explosives and bomb-making materials.

His attorneys filed an emergency motion in U.S. District Court in San Diego late Tuesday saying that Thursday's planned burning of the house -- deemed too dangerous to clear out and process as a crime scene -- is not only unsafe but will destroy evidence needed to defend Jakubec.

"Papers, journals, and other items in the house may help Mr. Jakubec prove his intent or his mental state," the motion states. "The alleged explosives in the home may themselves prove to be harmless, lawfully owned, or in some other way less inculpatory than the charges suggest."

But an FBI bomb technician James Verdi testified at Wednesday's hour long court hearing that explosive chemicals detected throughout the cluttered house were too volatile to be safely removed.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B74R520101208

---

The following was found inside the house. It is sensitive to heat.

<snip>
Hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD) is a high explosive organic compound, first synthesised in 1885 by Legler.<1> The theorised structure lent itself well to acting as an initiating, or primary explosive. While still quite sensitive to shock and friction, it was relatively stable compared to other initiating explosives of the time, such as mercury fulminate, and proved to be relatively inexpensive and easy to synthesise. As such, it was quickly taken up as a primary explosive in mining applications.<2> However, it has since been superseded by even more stable compounds such as tetryl.
Preparation and properties

HMTD may be prepared by the reaction of an aqueous solution of hydrogen peroxide and hexamine in the presence of citric acid or dilute sulfuric acid as a catalyst.

No peroxide has found practical use as an explosive, a consequence of the weak oxygen– oxygen bond leading to poor thermal and chemical stability and a high sensitivity to impact. HMTD is a more powerful initiating explosive than mercury fulminate but its poor thermal and chemical stability prevents its use in detonators.<3>

Like other organic peroxides such as acetone peroxide, HMTD is an unstable compound that is sensitive to shock, friction, and heat. This makes the substance extremely dangerous to manufacture. It also reacts with most common metals, which can lead to detonation. HMTD is very stable when pure (acid free) and does not quickly sublime like its acetone counterparts.
<end of snip>

link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMTD


The question becomes, is the burning of the house the best idea? If so why and what are we not being told?

[Liberty Belle]

1. Photos of what they found inside that house:

http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/4968

Check these out, and then explain to me how the wife could have not known what was going on.

I think she was complicit, too.

[Poll_Blind]

2. I think burning the house is the most fucking amazingly idiotic idea.

Defense lawyer's pleas for preservation of evidence aside, if you have no fucking idea what kind of chemicals are in this house, how can you be doing anything but rolling the dice when you light that fire?

The Governator already issued an emergency declaration freeing the state from any liability to result from burning the house which- does that strike anyone else as a little unusual?

This is hazardous waste disposal in a crippled economy: Just burn it.

Explosives aside, what if this guy has mercury, some other element or god-fucking-knows-what chemicals that the state is going to be aerosolizing with intense heat? What's the fallout radius on that shit?

PB

[PavePusher]

7. So, you're volunteering to go in and help clean the place out, amIright?

I'm betting $5 on "No".

[mrdmk]

10. First you can keep you $5 bucks, all bets are off!

The real question is whether or not a dangerous situation is being made more dangerous?

This is a military solution for a civilian problem...

[melm00se]

29. you have to ask yourself

Would you (even if you were highly trained) volunteer to go in there and clean it up?

All kidding aside, while I understand your argument re: hazardous materials, I wonder if it would be safer to burn it in a controlled manner versus risking it going *BOOM* (which is usually a most uncontrollable event) while be cleaned out?

[Dem2theMax]

3. Thursday is going to be an interesting day.

I live about five minutes drive from 'the bomb house.' I'm just hoping there are no winds. I'll be stunned if this goes according to plan.
That house is a hoarders paradise. Heaven only knows what all is in there. We're about to find out.

[Poll_Blind]

4. I'm really concerned there's a chance it's going blow up and spread un-incinerated material over...

...a relatively wide radius (several hundred yards?) making the problem 10 times worse.

PB

[Dem2theMax]

6. Exactly. They don't really know what is in that house.

The bomb squad, et al, can plan all they want, but there are so many variables out of their control.
If it does get out of control, the fire alone would be horrible. Toss a bunch of crap on the freeway and we have
gridlock for days. I'm glad we planned ahead and did all of our shopping yesterday. I can avoid town, or
go to Temecula if I had to. I live to the east of Escondido proper.

[mrdmk]

5. There is a planned closing of Interstate 15 and that will be the biggest inconvenience for most

that live in or commute through North San Diego County!

What are the opinions of the people who live in your neighborhood about a supposed controlled demolition of a residential house containing highly volatile explosives?

Is it for safety reasons as stated, dealing with the problem on the cheap, a public demonstration for purposes of instilling fear, raising insurance premiums, or what? I am really clueless about the justifications of this extreme measure!!!

[PavePusher]

8. See #7. n/t

[Dem2theMax]

9. I live far enough away that it 'shouldn't' affect my neighborhood as far

as fire, smoke, etc. (Unless strong winds came up, and that WOULD be a problem.)

The hard part has been on the neighborhood where the bomb house is located. Those poor people -
they have been living in fear for the past few weeks, while the experts decided what to do.
I'd be scared silly if my house were next door. The house truly is a hoarders heaven.
There is so much crap in the house, they can't make a true assessment of what could be in there
in the way of explosives. This entire area is in a VERY fire prone district. The bomb house
backs up to the freeway and is surrounded by dried grass, brush and trees. It wouldn't take
much to turn this into a wildfire. So they have to take any and all precautions they can.
Toss in the unknowns of smoke inhalation, and what might be toxic in that house - all I can
think is that they are doing the best they can to keep the situation from being much worse.

Three years ago, over 500,000 people from So. Cal had to evacuate their homes due to wildfires,
our family being one of them. We all learned the hard way to take fire very seriously.
I think that is the main reason they are taking so many precautions.

Having the freeway shut down for a few hours will actually be a silver lining for us.
No noise and no gas fumes for a short period of time. I HATE that darned freeway.
We were here before it was built. It used to be so peaceful here.

[mrdmk]

11. Our family's Fallbrook house of 25 years (where I live now) was also evacuated during those fires

My Niece, her husband and three little boys were camped out in my living room because of that disaster. They had 15 minute warning to leave. Homes 75 feet away from here were burned down to the ground. That is what we get for living out in the woods and having a power company to cheap to maintain their power lines.

It is understood for an extreme problem requires an extreme measure, but is this solution over-the-top?

[KT2000]

16. Please - please leave the area

better to be safe than sorry.

[girl gone mad]

12. Security theater.

endangering lives and property for show.

[GReedDiamond]

13. Someone stop the psychos...

...not just the bomb-maker freak, but also the anti bomb-makers, "we're too fucking stupid, ignorant, unprofessional, etc, to properly dispose of this shit, so we're jut gonna burn it down"-ers.

This is LUNACY!

[PavePusher]

21. See #7. Are you volunteering? n/t

[mrdmk]

23. Your question is asinine and this is the third time you posted it.

The point is taken...

[PavePusher]

27. And yet the hand-wringing continues.

Not asinine at all, apparently.

[GReedDiamond]

28. Yes, asinine, stupid, and annoying...

...which is to be expected, I suppose.

I don't live in that neighborhood, but I do live not all that far away.

I would have preferred trained personnel had gone in to properly clear the place out. I suppose expecting that level of competence and professionalism from our "public servants" (who knew -- or should have known -- that the job was dangerous when they took it), is more than I/we should expect these days.

[MindPilot]

14. We still don't know anything about George Jakubec

Whatever his motivations and intentions were, law enforcement is being very secretive.


We also have gotten no information about the property's owner.


And if anyone has a better way to eliminate this hazard than incineration, I'm sure the guys who do this sort of stuff for a living would love to hear your expert opinion.

[Loudmxr]

15. I have a one word response "MOVE".

MOVE or the MOVE Organization (though the name is not an acronym, it is spelled by followers in capital letters) is a Philadelphia-based black liberation group founded by charismatic leader John Africa. MOVE was described by CNN as "a loose-knit, mostly black group whose members all adopted the surname Africa, advocated a "back-to-nature" lifestyle and preached against technology."<1> The Philadelphia Police Department raided their home in 1978 and later in 1985. During the latter event, the Philadelphia Police shot teargas at the MOVE headquarters and then dropped a four-pound, military-grade C-4 plastic explosive bomb on the house. The bombing resulted in 11 deaths (including 5 children) and the destruction of 65 homes in the resulting fires.

When explovsives.... explode. They are kinda hard to contain and control especially if you don't know what else will explode too.

The homes were rebuilt but the work was so shoddy that there are many lawsuits pending against the contractors and the city.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

17. That was my first thought when this story broke.

The setting and configuration aren't the same, but the potential for a widespread disaster is there. The people in the vicinity of the house are caught between a rock and a hard place. At the very least, I would be sure that I was nowhere near the area when this "controlled solution" takes place.

I'm sure that all safety precautions will take place during the event, but who's going to be responsible for any possible witches' brew in the aftermath? Oh well, we can always trust the government to be 100% honest about any safety and/or health issues that pop up later.



:sarcasm:

[Steve_I_Am]

18. This makes NO SENSE.

Chemicals are too volatile to remove safely . . . but are NOT too volatile to burn and spew into the atmosphere?

The questions that need to be asked are, what evidence is the government destroying, and why.

The suspect's attorney is absolutely correct. The government is making it next-to-impossible to prosecute this guy. You have to ask yourself, why?

[slackmaster]

25. EOD people have a right to protect themselves. They judged the house to be too dangerous.

Too many sensitive explosives and unknown substances of unknown stability.

[slackmaster]

19. The burn went well. No big explosions, smoke went pretty much straight up.

:hi:

There were some small pops as ammunition and maybe some chemicals cooked off.

Michele Holt's house, for which she paid $479,000, has been reduced to smoldering rubble.

Government isn't obligated to compensate her for the loss, and I doubt that her insurance will either. She'll have to walk away from her mortgages and let the lender eat it.

[mrdmk]

22. Thank the heavens the damage was contain to the house

This was heard on the TV news (sorry, no link), the owner does not have insurance. A haz-mat team will be going into the rubble tomorrow Friday looking for more toxins. The EPA will be going through the soil to check for toxins. The entire house will be removed by government agencies and the property will be rehabilitated and suited for residential neighborhood. What happens after that will be up to the owner...

[slackmaster]

24. I don't believe it. The home is collateral on ~$450,000 of mortgages, a first and an equity loan.

It has to have casualty (fire) insurance, otherwise the lenders would have placed a Forced Order of Insurance policy on it if and when the owner stopped paying premiums on the policy that had to be there for the loans to have been made in the first place. The only homeowners in California who don't have insurance on their homes are a subset of owners who have no mortgages.

The suspect, who was renting the home, may not have a renter's policy to cover his lost belongings.

However, I doubt that the insurance will pay out. Acts of God, acts of war, civil unrest, and emergency actions by government (e.g. reacting to a public health hazard) are usually excluded.

The owner, a single woman, is SOL, and will probably walk away from the place and tell the lenders to go ahead and foreclose. They'll sue her for some amount of money that she doesn't have, and she'll probably have to declare bankruptcy.

[mrdmk]

26. Thanks for the info, I own a condo and we have a collective fire insurance

[Xithras]

20. This is stupid. They could clear the house if they wanted.

At least to an extent that the defense could get access to the home.

As I posted a month ago when this first broke, I used to know a guy who would make small amounts of HMTD to blow out gopher holes. It's very easy to make, and the instructions for the stuff are all over the Internet (YouTube is full of people blowing things up with it). The main ingredients are hex-fuel (a type of solid backpacking fuel) and peroxide.

I wouldn't go smoking in that house, but there's no reason for them to burn it.

On the upside, most of the people worried about pollution have nothing to be concerned about. The chemicals spewed into the air by the burning shingles and carpeting are more environmentally hazardous than the chemicals released by an HMTD detonation.