My Night Was Da Bomb!

When you're a teenager you are tempted to do all sorts of foolish things. This stage of life is when the phrase "it seemed like a good idea at the time" is learned. A group of teenagers are having a get together at a friend's house. They are coming off of Christmas break and some of them are seniors in high school. Those guys are thinking ahead to college. They decide to set off some dry ice bombs in the back yard. Now, to anyone who doesn't know, dry ice bombs are exactly what they sound like. They are improvised explosive devices that can cause some damage. However these kids are setting them off in the backyard just for the noise. What is even more dumb is the parents are watching this unaware (so they later claimed) that it was illegal. They obtain dry ice and a 24 pack of water bottles.


We originally get the call about firearms being discharged. We go out to a wooded area of a neighborhood and hear several explosions. We drive down the road asking neighbors until we find the house it is coming from. We knock on the door and the father answers. He admits his son and their friends are setting off the dry ice bombs. To be honest we were hoping it was fireworks and we would have left it alone. However since they said the magic word 'bomb' we have to do our jobs. We start asking for identifications for the initial report. The father and his son are in disbelief. They cannot believe we'd have the nerve to question them regarding their 'harmless fun.' The son starts questioning our authority to ask for their names. We politely tell him he can give us his name right there, or we'll put him in the patrol car in handcuffs and he can give it to us there, his choice. As we're gathering information I call the bomb squad and tell them what we have. They arrive within the hour. During the time we made small talk with the son and the mother. The father was off in another room sulking. At this point we had their cooperation and they gave us permission to enter the residence to check out the set up. I was halfway expecting the father to come into the room at any moment and revoke his invitation and demand we leave. Had that happened we would've left however we would have brought everyone in that house outside and kept them there while someone went and got a search warrant. That would make everyone miserable having to wait outside. Fortunately it never happened. When the bomb squad arrived he asked what the attitude of the family was like. I told him the family was cool at this point and we had no problems. This probably made the determination of the bomb squad to gather the evidence, put a scare into the kids and parents and leave it at that rather than arrest everyone for felony setting off explosive devices. As the parents of the other kids were being called I decided I'd done enough and got the hell out of there.