UA student arrested in connection with nitrogen bombs

UAPD

By: Jack Willems

Posted: 12/3/07

Last Thursday, Jeremiah Born participated in an activity he thought would be harmless fun, but it sent him to jail charged with a felony instead, he said.

"I never would have done it if I thought it would end like this," Born said.

Thursday afternoon, Born was using liquid nitrogen to blow up plastic bottles he found along the side of the road on the way to his dorm, he said. Afterward, the police arrested Born for criminal use of a prohibited weapon, said Lt. Vance Rice of the UA Police Department.

Using liquid nitrogen to blow up bottles is seen by the UAPD as creating homemade explosives, Rice said. The UAPD received calls from people hearing these explosions at about 4:30 p.m. Thursday, and they proceeded to investigate, Rice said. Born admitted to the crime.

John Wellenberger witnessed Born destroying the bottles. When he was leaving a physics lab Thursday, Wellenberger said he saw Born with a styrofoam container of liquid nitrogen. Born did not say where he acquired the liquid nitrogen.

First, Born and the group wanted to freeze a banana, but then they decided to freeze an apple instead, Wellenberger said. The conversation then turned to how dry ice could make plastic bottles explode, and the group decided to pour the liquid nitrogen into bottles, Wellenberger said. The group found four plastic bottles when walking back to their hall, and Born succeeded in getting three of them to explode, he said.

"To be honest…I didn't really think liquid nitrogen in a bottle would make much of an explosion," Wellenberger said.

Police cars approached the group as they reached their dorm, Wellenberger said. Several people heard the explosions and called the police. The officers told them that making bombs was very serious, especially after the shootings at Virginia Tech, Wellenberger said.

UAPD has seen liquid nitrogen used to explode plastic bottles before, and people have been hurt as a result, Rice said. About 6 or 7 years ago in Pomfret Hall, one of these bottles was dropped down a stairwell, and when it exploded, a student at the bottom suffered minor injuries, Rice said. Two years ago, another such bottle was found in a trash room and when someone came to pick up the trash, he was hit with shrapnel from the exploding bottle, Rice said.

"He was dazed and confused as a result of the concussion, and he also received minor injuries to his hand," Rice said.

If there is nothing else in it, filling a plastic bottle with liquid nitrogen "could tear up anything within 6 to 8 feet," Rice said. If the bottle was filled with objects like gravel or sticks, then the shrapnel could travel 20 to 25 feet, Rice said.

No one was hurt in this instance, Rice said. There was no property damage, and the group did not think it would be that loud, Wellenberger said. When the police came, Born told them that he was the one responsible and they took him away, Wellenberger said. The police told everyone else in the group that they would be contacted by the judicial board, but Wellenberger said he has not yet been contacted by the judicial board, he said.

Born was released Friday afternoon. He said he did not want to cause any trouble and had never done anything like that before.

While use of a criminal weapon is a Class D Felony, the police and the judge told him that his sentence "should be reduced to a misdemeanor," Born said.

"I don't think the reaction would be the same if it were in the middle of a field," Rice said, "but to set off a bomb in the middle of a university campus is just not safe."