Police foil attempted statue bombing
Man found with explosives is charged
Federal authorities said Monday that a Houston man was charged with attempting to bomb a statue in that city honoring a Confederate military figure.
The charges, filed Sunday and made public Monday, come as officials across the country have grappled with how to handle their Confederate monuments, an issue that has taken on a newfound urgency since violence erupted in Charlottesville, Va., this month.
Authorities said Andrew Schneck, 25, was found by a Houston Park Ranger late Saturday night with materials capable of creating “a viable explosive device.”
An attorney for Schneck said the same man had also been convicted in an earlier explosives case.
According to an FBI affidavit, Schneck was spotted just after 11 p.m. Saturday kneeling in front of the General Dowling Monument, a marble statue honoring Richard Dowling, who served as a military leader and then a recruiter for the Confederacy.
An FBI special agent wrote in the affidavit that Schneck was holding two small boxes, including a timer and wires, prompting the park ranger to contact the Houston Police Department, which notified its bomb squad.
At one point, Schneck “took a clear plastic bottle appearing to be full of a clear liquid from one of the boxes,” FBI Special Agent Patrick Hutchinson wrote. Schneck “then proceeded to drink from the bottle, then immediately spit the liquid on the ground next him, then proceeded to pour the contents of the bottle on the ground next to him.”
The Houston police bomb squad eventually determined that the clear liquid was nitroglycerin, an explosive. They also said the box contained HMTD, or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, another explosive.
Inside the box, Houston police officials said, were other things able to “produce a viable explosive device,” including a timer, battery and wires connected to a homemade detonator.
The affidavit also says Schneck told them he had other chemicals at the home where he lives with his mother, who is quoted as saying he uses the house to conduct “chemistry experiments.”