This happened in a sleepy Southeast Pennsylvania township on Friday afternoon. If you live outside of Montgomery County, PA, chances are you haven't heard a word of it.
That's probably because the guy involved apparently doesn't have an Arabic-sounding name. We don't know that for sure, though, because, well, because we all we really know is:
"My understanding is that the gentleman from New Hanover was crafting explosive devices and during the course of some of his activities, he exploded one of the devices and injured himself," Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said.
Ferman said the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office was in charge of the scene throughout the course of much of the official activity in the 2600 block of Deep Creek Road, and "detonated all the materials" that were believed to be volatile and explosive. Once the detonation was complete, the FBI and ATF which responded to the incident, "have been handling the investigation," Ferman said.
There's more...
So this story has been sitting around since Friday afternoon and the only coverage I can find is on the two tiny dailies that cover this area.
As of today, they still haven't released this guy's name or anything about him other than this snippet in today's follow-up story:
Ferman said the identity of the man is being withheld until the charges are filed...
Several nearby neighbors said Saturday they believed the man was either in the Marines or was a former Marine; although, that could not be confirmed.
But Friday in this neighborhood was reportedly quite a blast. According to the newspaper account, there were nine separate explosions:
Montgomery County Sheriff John P. Durante confirmed Saturday there were a total of nine explosions when the volatile substances, which he declined to identify, were detonated by the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department Bomb Squad at the scene. Eight of those explosions occurred Friday and one occurred Saturday.
I apologize for this quick, disjointed diary, but this type of story -- in which there are more questions than answers three days later, and the media seems wholly uninterested in reporting -- gets me angry.
The fact that it would be totally different if the man creating the explosives was of a different nationality just makes it worse.