Posted on 11/04/2005 9:57:10 AM PST by LibertyRocks
Prosecutors are considering felony charges for an OU campus burglary. ‘The circumstances of today’s environment caused everybody to look at it in a worst case scenario framework,’ an assistant district attorney says.
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Two men arrested for breaking into maintenance tunnels beneath the University of Oklahoma and burglarizing a biology building entered a room marked “biohazard,” according to the Cleveland County District Attorney’s office.
Cleveland County assistant district attorney Rick Sitzman said Christopher Boyce, 24, and James Kent Eldridge, 21, broke into an opening into a tunnel network beneath the university, made their way underground into the Richards Hall zoology building and entered a room with a sign on the door warning of biohazards.
Both Boyce and Eldridge are charged with conspiracy to commit second-degree burglary and second-degree burglary, according to reports. The suspects could each face up to 17 years in prison.
“Some people want to portray this as simply a juvenile prank,” Sitzman said. “It may be, but we’re not convinced of that yet. The circumstances of today’s environment caused everybody to look at it in a worst case scenario framework, given the building they entered, and that they made entry to a room clearly marked ‘biohazard.’ Fortunately, it no longer had any biohazards in it, but I can’t say they didn’t know that.”
According to an affidavit, a witness observed Boyce and Eldridge Oct. 20 entering a manhole leading into the tunnel system beneath OU at the 1100 block of Asp Avenue on campus at around 2 a.m. Sitzman said the men first entered a part of the tunnel system on the west side of the building, but “found it uninteresting” and then entered another tunnel and made their way into Richards Hall.
After the witness called police, officers investigating found the locks had been cut with a bolt cutter. The officer then saw the two walking down the sidewalk.
“The officer encountered them coming down the sidewalk and the reporting party identified them,” Sitzman said.
The court records show the two were arrested at 2:46 a.m. The affidavit said one of the men was in possession of a “stoppered glass vial.”
“One of them had a glass vial in their possession, Mr. Boyce. Whether it was empty or not, I do not know,” Sitzman said.
According to OU’s Web site, both men have been students at the university. Boyce is listed as a senior at the College of Arts and Sciences, with an e-mail address listed as camus_in_revolt@ou.edu. Eldridge is listed as a junior in the same college, with the e-mail as aither@ou.edu. Both men appear to be members of various campus and off-campus organizations.
Both were also associated with a group off-campus called 3rd Space Infoshop and Lending Library, featured in a recent issue of Oklahoma Gazette. Boyce was listed as co-founder of 3rd Space, which some members have described as “anarchist.”
“(The concept) third space is from Theodore Adorno, a sociologist, and he talked about how community needs spaces that aren’t designated merely for work or for home,” Boyce told the Gazette. “But third spaces are where people gather in the community — like coffee shops, hardware stores, any place where people just sit down and talk.”
Book titles at the organization include “Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy,” “Fast Food Nation” and “Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, & Cheap Labor in the American Black Market,” according to the article.
In a January interview with The Oklahoma Daily student newspaper, Boyce said the library attracted conservatives and liberals.
“Revolution is not about taking over the government, it is not having a government at all,” Boyce said. “Nobody telling us what to think and what to do. Existing without capital, defining your own values.”
An infoshop member said the group is working toward gaining nonprofit status under the name Greenbriar Collective. Recently, members of the 3rd Space claimed they were being harassed by the FBI as having ties to Joel Henry Hinrichs III, an OU engineering student who blew himself up on campus during the Oct. 1 Kansas State football game. The first line of a recent Greenbriar blog posting was “The FBI came by again.”
“This time it was about them having a ‘tip’ that the OU Stadium bomber was ‘seen moving boxes at the house.’ Sorry ya’ll, no one here has ever met him. Please go away now, because your ~70 year history of destroying innocent people’s lives is creepy, and harassment isn’t going to make us stop,” the blogger wrote.
Eldridge’s father, Oklahoma City attorney Kent Eldridge, recently represented Charles Alfred Dreyling Jr., another OU student. Dreyling reportedly pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating security requirements after trying to bring what he described as “basically a pipe bomb” aboard a plane Aug. 10 at Will Rogers World Airport.
Kent Eldridge said his son, James, is a hard-working student with a clean record and expects this controversy will subside.
“We are very proud parents, and he is a fine young man,” Kent Eldridge said.
John Rushton, another founder of the 3rd Space, told the Gazette last week that he expected more visits from the FBI and that Boyce and Eldridge meant no harm.
“Obviously, I’ve seen things floating around the Internet, and I could tell right away that people were going to be convicting them as potential terrorists. I can tell you they couldn’t possibly be that,” Rushton said.
We don't even really know if the vial was taken from Richards Hall...
As some have pointed out in past threads they could've brought the vial into the building with them. All we know is that a "stoppered glass vial" was found on Boyce's person when he was searched that night/morning.
There are conflicting statements floating around over whether the vial was empty or not when it was found. Even if it was empty - as according to Sgt. Robinson of the OUPD - that doesn't necessarily mean it didn't contain something previously...
In thinking about this further my SPECULATIVE GUESS (provided that the vial was empty prior to and after the burglary) is that Boyce brought the vial in to the building hoping to fill it once inside and failed to achieve that due to the fact that the substances in the room they entered had been moved... That would make the most sense to me at this point. As I said, that's assuming that the vial was indeed empty and was not emptied at some time during the execution of their burglary "plan".
Thanks for posting that Granny. (o:
| Posted in response to: Oklahoma Students Stealing Vials Of What? @ FloppingAces I saw an article about this on the front page of the OU school paper the other day. His [Boyce's] name sounded really familiar to me so I started asking around with people that I thought we both knew, and checking to see what I could find on the internet. I found out some interesting things. Apparently he spent at least a year working as a security guard for the OOUPD AND his roommate (conspicuously out of the picture) is in the same fraternity as “Unibomber Joe,” AKA Joel Hinrichs. This just makes me wonder even more, what would this left wing nut with insider connections and clear ties to Joel Hinrichs want with vials from the Biology lab? Comment by Gene — October 27, 2005 @ 11:41 am In response to a question Gene posted the following for clarity... I was talking about Boyce. I don’t know the name of the roommate right now, but I will see if I can find it. Comment by Gene — October 28, 2005 @1:59 pm |
I'm going to take a "wild guess" and say it might be someone named Kirk Allen.
Both he and Boyce list that College Ave. address as their home address. Also a person named John Gordon, but I can't pin him down as to an age or middle name--there is a 40something one elsewhere in Norman who is not this one. Nothing on Kirk C. Allen in the court dockets, either, in case you were gonna look.
Allen is a graduate engineer who may be a Triangle member. I haven't looked yet.
This is an extra ping to PKM because the 813 College Ave. address is in the next block south of the DG house, with which she is familiar.
Thanks for those links and posts; I had missed the last few on the previous "tunnel burglars" topic. Glad I read them now.
So, you all already knew about the 3rd Space Infoshop, but I missed it. I want to learn how to live without capital, too, lol. Am I a revolutionary? Well, maybe DAR.
I can't believe Kent -- "I'm just so proud" of my little burglar. James: "Waaahh, dad always loved drug dealers and bombers better."
It also looks like the Gazette people might've been reading FR! Ha - they probably have a "designated FReader" and the rest stand back and hold their noses till the "FReader" is finished. (Says I, ::waving to any old friends I might have still at the Gazette:: .)
These guys may not themselves be jihadis. One worldwide phenomenon is the jihadis making alliances with radical Leftists against Western civilization
You are correct. Knowing about the anarchists and all the other terror groups at OU I should have simply said:
"Add another link into the 'We Hate America' terrorist ring at OU."
With each new "isolated" incident that happens, the more I am convinced that domestic radicals and islamists at our universities are working hand in hand toward a common goal. It's only a matter of time before one of their plans reaches fruition in a way that can't be glossed over as being "not connected to terrorism".
Sounds like the name of a band.
Never mind... Holy Moley, I thought these guys had all been burned out and freeze-dried back in the 70's.
One answer is here. We really don't want to meet that answer.
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