Story Archive

Diagnosis Correct

“I’m an idiot,” Joseph T. Brennan Jr. told a witness after an explosion in his car in Quincy, Mass. “I lit a cigarette with the gunpowder in the front seat.” Brennan, 36, had been driving down the street at 11:30 p.m. with various powders and chemicals he got from a friend, intending “to tinker with” them. “I wasn’t going to do anything malicious,” he told police. The explosion threw him out of his car; the witness heard the explosion and rushed over, and helped Brennan up. Police bomb squad technicians searched Brennan’s car and apartment and impounded multiple items, they say. He was charged with three counts of possession of a destructive device, and one count of possession of components of a destructive device. Brennan was arraigned in his hospital bed, and objected to the media being present. “I don’t want to be on TV,” he told the judge. (RC/Boston Globe) ...Old-world worry: doing something dumb that will get you on TV. New-world worry: doing something dumb that will get you on the Internet.