Thursday, August 07, 2008

Sophisticated Kids.

A scary story in yesterday's Washington Post about an 18-year-old Montgomery County, MD resident and his 17-year-old accomplice who have been found to be stashing assault weapons, armor piercing bullets and, oh yeah, a map of presidential retreat Camp David that includes a motorcade route.

"Police investigating a teenager accused of bomb-making and weapons violations found a map of Camp David with a presidential motorcade route in his home, a Montgomery County prosecutor said.

Collin McKenzie-Gude, 18, of Bethesda, also had a document that appears to describe how to kill someone 200 meters away, Montgomery Assistant State's Attorney Peter A. Feeney said.
The teen had two forms of fake identification _ one portraying him as a Central Intelligence Agency employee and another as a federal contractor, Feeney said. The details were revealed Tuesday in a bond hearing in the case, The Washington Post reported...


Authorities said they found 50 pounds of chemicals, assault-style weapons and armor-piercing bullets in his home. The investigation has expanded to include the CIA, FBI and Secret Service. "

I'm not going to turn this into a "What the hell is wrong with people?" rant. I'm not naive enough to think that there are not evil young people smart and devious enough to plot and execute a diabolical plan; Columbine and Virginia Tech hammered these points home long ago. I do, however, wonder what he was actually up to. Was a true home-grown terrorist plot thwarted? Or was he just a punk kid playing a little over his head. And I do wonder about his father who, allegedly, helped his son acquire some of the weapons. Jesus, when I was eighteen, the most complex and diabolical plans my friends and I tried to hatch were scoring beer and toilet papering buddies' cars without getting caught.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

and our antics typically ended with "abort -- ABORT!!"

kids these days...

Anonymous said...

"how to kill someone 200 meters away"

a good sized bomb? an only half-way-decent sniper? with a car, 200 meters becomes fatal contact in short-order...

sounds like he had the Anarchist Handbook (or equivalent) in his bedroom. big whoop.

Angela said...

It's amazing what kids can do now. All this technology is readily available... for good and bad. Kinda scary!!

ROBOTIMMS said...

Sound like good kids to me. At least they had a sense of purpose and drive...something most teens are lacking these days. The Govt. should give them jobs instead of jailing them.