Posted on 01/27/2014 6:02:04 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
A Russian college student in Pennsylvania was charged with unlawful possession of 'weapons of mass destruction' and risking catastrophe on Friday, according to authorities.
Penn State Altoona student Vladislav Miftakhov, 18, was arrested Friday after Altoona police found homemade bombs and bomb-making materials in his room while investigating a possible marijuana growing operation, according to a criminal complaint.
Police also found marijuana plants but called backup when they discovered fuses attached to aluminum and plastic containers.
After officers removed Miftakhov from a class and attained a search warrant, investigators discovered one pound each of atomized magnesium and Chinese potassium perchlorate and a package labeled potassium nitrate powder — which are all “key components in the bomb making process,” the criminal complaint said.
And although the specific charge is the "unlawful possession or manufacture or weapons of mass destruction" there's no indication that the student had anything nuclear or radioactive.
Miftakhov told Altoona police and campus police that he intended to “blow things up” with the bomb-making paraphernalia that he said he purchased on Amazon, according to the complaint.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.nbcnews.com ...
I always wondered what would happen if you bought that stuff on amazon.
I always wondered what would happen if you bought that stuff on amazon.
...he should have hid the stuff in the shower rooms at the PSU football facility...apparently nobody ever sees anything there...
Fireworks making materials with the usual “we take this very seriously (because we have to justify our jobs somehow.)” crap. Every kid I knew when I was growing up “blew things up.” We used M-80s and it was great fun except my friend blew up his dad’s newly planted rosebushes while his dad was looking out the window - not much fun there for a while.
I’m sure glad I grew up back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. We were always making model rockets with our own propellants and our own black powder.
Made our own fire crackers and cherry bombs.
We’d all go to prison today.
This used to be a good country.
The common item seems to be potassium. We should ban it.
Sounds like he might have been planning something similar to the Boston bomber brothers. Who are his close friends? Is he another immigrant living on the dole?
No bid deal. Unless he killed some people, then it would be, “holy crap, why didn’t somebody DO something?”.
Pretty soon people will be afraid to fertilize their yard for fear of getting a visit.
No, he's living off the dope.
PSU ping
any explosive, or its components, are now being called ‘weapons of mass destruction’??
if I have a can of gas and a rag in my garage, can they hit me with a similar charge?
I’m pretty sure they’re off on their definitions by a few orders of magnitude
I'd like to know what part of Russia he comes from. Dagestan, perhaps?
bttt
You are right. Times have changed. Homemade fireworks and model rockets. One thing we didn’t have was Big Brother Government. I remember making alot of noise with the fire crackers and my old man was there helping. Now days it is all on video and the kids have now real physical reaction with these items.
I and my friends use to buy potassium perchlorate and nitrate in the local drug store.
Is Chinese potassium perchlorate more evil than others?
Yeah, I’m glad I grew up (well, if you ask my wife, at least got older) when I did. My friends and I also experimented with home made fireworks. We never hurt anyone - heck, eyebrows grow back right? So that doesn’t count. Today, I’m sure one or all of us would have an arrest record...
I’m sure it’s the dream of every young Russian lad to one day enroll at Penn State-Altoona....
I was actually born and raised in Altoona, and attended the very same campus my first two years. Sigh.
I can potentially imagine why a foreign-born student, faced with the prospect of being stuck in Altoona for two years, might start ordering strange stuff from Amazon. . .
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