Comic Relief – Hoist on His Own Petard

The opinions expressed in the following post are those of Eric Anderson and not those of anyone else, including the employees of any police department, municipality, law firm, newspaper, or anyone else mentioned in this story. This is my commentary, folks, deal with it.

First, a little lesson in explosive ordinance:

Exploding cannonballs were hollow. They were filled with black powder through a hole usually about an inch in diameter. The hole was filled with a plug with a hole through it. The plug was recessed into the cannonball shell (not sticking out as often shown in cartoons). Through the hole was passed a short wick - usually a short piece of rope soaked in some combustible material. The entire plug/wick apparatus was called a fuse.

After the cannon was packed with powder and tamped, etc., the cannonball wick was lighted and quickly dropped into the cannon - which was then fired quickly. The wick was designed so that there was enough time to get it into the cannon, get the cannon fired, and still have enough time left to get to the enemy before it exploded. Obviously, this was a pretty important thing to get right (don't want the cannonball going off in your hand or in your cannon). A specialist, called a fusileer, was in charge of figuring out the right type of fuse and length of wick to install for hitting certain kinds of targets. (1)

Photo: Ebay

Next, the news story (edited for space, edit marks listed):

Man can't believe APD blew up his beloved artifact cannonball
By MEGAN HOLLAND, Anchorage Daily News
Published: September 5, 2005

When he called police and the bomb squad showed up at his Anchorage home last week, Yale Metzger just wanted them to examine the cannonball he had picked up in Cordova. He didn't want them to bring out the remote-controlled robot, haul away the cast iron ball and blow it to smithereens.

But that's what they did.

Now Metzger is saying the Anchorage Police Department was looking for an excuse to dynamite something and that they owe him a cannonball.

The police are calling Metzger "an idiot" for carrying the incendiary device around in his truck, then bringing it into downtown Anchorage, where they say it could have sent shrapnel flying for blocks had it exploded.

Metzger, a 45-year-old Anchorage attorney, found the 4-inch, 8-pound, cast iron ball in downtown Cordova last summer while excavating property he had purchased. It was unearthed in what was most recently a snow dump.

Metzger put it in the back of his pickup, where it rolled around for a year, he said.

{a little blah blah blah about whether the cannonball was really an ball used in grinding ore and suggesting that no matter what it was it might have had historic value}

Several weeks ago, he decided to bring his find to his Anchorage home. He got a friend to pack it with him on a state ferry. Metzger had heard of old cannonballs blowing up, but he chalked up those stories largely to urban myth or at least something that happens extremely rarely.

Still, once it was in Anchorage, Metzger was slightly concerned the ball could be still active and thought he would check it out. He wanted to know if his cannonball was solid or hollow, and if it was hollow, did it have volatile black powder?

He tried to get a friend at the airport's Transportation Security Administration to put it through one of the machines. That didn't work; it would have gotten his friend in trouble. He tried to get a friend at a medical office to X-ray it, but the machine was judged not powerful enough.

So he called the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They told him to call the Anchorage Police Department.

Police said they would take a look at it. Last Monday, the bomb squad took one look at it sitting in Metzger's garage and treated it like a bomb seconds away from blowing.

"Could it have exploded?" Metzger asked. "Sure. So could a meteor fall out of the sky and hit your truck."

The bomb squad vehicle contained a portable X-ray machine that could have determined if the cannonball was hollow, but that wasn't an option, said police Sgt. Ray Jennings, head of the bomb squad. The super-powerful rays to see through metal would have punched through Metzger's walls and his neighbors', exposing everyone to the harmful rays, he said.

Taking a look at it, the police knew by the fuse hole that it was potentially live, they said.

"A cannonball is nothing more than a large grenade," Jennings said. "It could have sent metal flying blocks."

Metzger wanted the squad to take the cannonball and X-ray it elsewhere, but deputy chief Audi Holloway said, defending the department's decision, that moving it just puts officers in unnecessary danger.

"You never know what point an explosive device is at," he said. "If it is anything that may have explosives in it, that may cause damage to a person or property, we have to assume it will explode. We have to destroy it."

The bomb squad exploded the cannonball at the Anchorage Landfill, said Lt. Paul Honeman, but police won't say how for security reasons. Sgt. Jeff Morton confirmed that a secondary explosion occurred and said a different color of smoke blurted out, making it certain that the cannonball had volatile black powder.

Did the police destroy a potentially important historical artifact?

"We're not going to put a bomb technician's life in jeopardy over a cannonball or anything else," Jennings said. He called Metzger "an idiot" for bringing the bomb into town and for questioning the bomb squad's decision to destroy it.

Now Metzger wants the police to buy him another cannonball on eBay.

"I was going to make a doorstop out of it. They owe me a cannonball.

Okey Dokey. Give me a break!

Rule number one – if you call the bomb squad to look at your bomb, you must expect them to act as if it is highly dangerous.

Rule number two – let’s just say that the bomb squad wanted to put themselves and the neighborhood in jeopardy in order to take a look inside to see if it was inert or live. Why would the police use their valuable resources to do what amounts to an appraisal for a private citizen? If you want something appraised, go to an expert. If you want to dispose of your explosive ordinance then you call the Explosives Ordinance Disposal team – the bomb squad.

Rule number three – you want the city to buy you a doorstop? You are lucky the city doesn’t send you a bill for the cost of the equipment, the staff, and the transportation expense of dealing with your little bomb. Your friend at TSA didn’t want to do this for you for free, the ATF had no interest in helping you for free, so when the police came out to look at your bomb for free, don’t get upset when they act in the interest of the citizenry in general and not your cheap, stupid behind.

Rule number four, and this is just in case the citizen involved actually reads this and takes umbrage – when you bring a bomb home (and you were concerned enough about it being a bomb to ask several different people and agencies about it) and then the police treat it like a bomb a blow it up, QUIT WHILE YOU ARE BEHIND! Do NOT call the media to tell them that the police treated you shabbily. You might get called “an idiot” twice in the story and, oh I don’t know, perhaps some of your prospective clients in your law firm will remember you as the “Cannonball Idiot.”

Just a thought.

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Did you know that a petard is a small bell-shaped bomb used to blow open a door? They were notoriously dangerous to handle and sometimes blew up before the person setting the bomb had time to flee. Thus “hoist by your own petard” means getting blown up by your own bomb.

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Did I mention that he opinions expressed in the previous post are those of Eric Anderson and not those of anyone else, including the employees of any police department, municipality, law firm, newspaper, or anyone else mentioned in this story. This is my commentary, folks, deal with it.

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Sources:

(1) Dave Clark, Staff, Chemical and Environmental Technologies, Battelle

(2) Anchorage Daily News, Monday, September 3^rd, 2005

Picture: http://cgi.ebay.com/1812-Fusable-Cannonball_W0QQitemZ6558451239QQcategoryZ4070QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem