Vinylogous
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The Curious Case of the Cursory Chemical Cache
Hi Sciencemadness members! There is no dedicated introduction forum here, so I thought I would give a quick intro before delving into the heart of
this post, a rather disheartening example of when hobby chemistry meets overzealous police officials.
I'm a synthetic chemist recently starting my first "real" job out of college at a pharmaceuticals company, and enjoying nearly every minute of it.
Industry is so far Have an HPLC and Buchi rotovap all to myself, as well as access to a full analytical suite, two NMRs, LCMS, the works. It's lovely.
I was a member of E&W back in its heyday, and I daresay that forum, along with Bill Nye, and a crazy/awesome high school chemistry teacher,
vaulted me into my chemistry career. I also enjoy hobby tinkering with chemistry, electronics and mechanical stuff, though as you will see below, I
fear that chemistry is becoming less and less of a socially acceptable hobby every day.
This article caught my eye in the local paper. It's truly sad that any time police or fire forces see glassware or anything labeled "chemicals," they
go ballistic. Clearly, the only purpose for basement chemistry is making explosives, drugs, or both. Even when the items (acetone, xylene, sulfuric
acid, and blowtorch butane), are found in every home improvement store on the planet, they stop at nothing to punish people for having such "dangerous
chemicals."
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Bethlehem-chemical-cache-case-resolved-2204542.php
| Quote: | Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misstated the charge to which Jason Sanchez pleaded guilty. It is
attempted obstruction of governmental administration.
BETHLEHEM -- A former RPI graduate student who was arrested last November on charges that he kept a potentially volatile cache of chemicals in the
basement of his apartment complex pleaded guilty Tuesday to a misdemeanor count stemming from the case.
Jason Sanchez pleaded guilty to one count of attempted obstruction of governmental administration in Bethlehem Town Court. He will pay a $200 fine and
serve no jail time.
Sanchez originally was charged with first-degree reckless endangerment, a felony, in addition to attempted obstruction of governmental administration
and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors.
If found guilty on all three charges, Sanchez could have faced a maximum of nine years in prison. The attempted obstruction of governmental
administration charge carried a maximum of one year in jail.
Police found acetone, xylene, sulfuric acid, a propane torch, butane fuel, laboratory-grade nitric acid and a device described by police as a
"commercial-grade vacuum chamber" in the basement of the Cherry Arms apartment building Nov. 30.
Sanchez was a doctoral candidate in computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and teacher's assistant at Albany's William S. Hackett Middle
School.
After his arrest, Sanchez said he was taking a semester off to save money for his lawyer fees.
RPI spokesman Mark Marchand said Sanchez is not currently enrolled at RPI.
Sanchez's younger brother, Keenan Sanchez, was badly burned in a Dec. 19, 2009, chemical fire that destroyed his home at 151 Adams Place in Delmar.
Police said the younger Sanchez, then 15, may have been handling chemicals in the basement. Jason Sanchez and a third brother, Josh, were not home at
the time.
Jason Sanchez could not be reached for comment Wednesday. The 25-year-old had maintained that he used the chemicals primarily to clean the vacuum
chamber for science experiments and that the chemicals posed no danger.
Sanchez told the Times Union after his arrest that he purchased several of the chemicals at Lowes and kept no more than a gallon of each in the
basement. He said he used acetone and xylene to clean the vacuum chamber and paint spills and that the sulfuric acid came in a quart of Rooto Pro
Drain Opener.
Sanchez said he purchased the nitric acid online and used it to extract a microchip from its packaging.
The butane was used in an attempt to liquefy a metal gasket for the chamber and the propane torch was used when the butane didn't work, he explained.
Sanchez said he purchased the 500-pound vacuum chamber from Florida through eBay.
Police said the chemicals posed a "grave risk of death" and were potentially explosive if combined. Authorities searched the basement, prompted by a
Cherry Arms resident who called after spotting the vacuum chamber.
"The police department did its job," Bethlehem police spokesman Lt. Tom Heffernan said Wednesday. "Once we turn the case over to the district
attorney's office, there's nothing more we can do." The district attorney's office did not return phone calls for comment on the case Wednesday.
Reach Fitzgerald at 454-5414 or at bfitzgerald@timesunion.com. |
He lives literally down the street from my best friend's house. Acetone, xylene, sulfuric acid, a propane torch, butane fuel, nitric acid and
a vacuum chamber? Really, guys? The only thing you can't readily buy over the counter is the nitric acid (at least not in this area), which
has completely legitimate uses for digital electronics work. Keeping things well labeled and limiting supply to less than a gallon of each, I daresay
he's more prudent than many hobbyists I know. They talk about a blowtorch like it's a homebrew nuclear reactor, "What are you doing with all these
STRANGE items and exotic chemicals in your basement in close proximity to each other? Hmm!?"
| Quote: | | Police said the chemicals posed a "grave risk of death" and were potentially explosive if combined. |
So are nail polish remover, hydrogen peroxide, and HCl toilet bowl cleaner under every bathroom sink in the country.
It is unfortunate that a fire resulted in property damage, but that's no different than if the younger sibling was screwing around with matches, or
oily rags in the garage going up. Now he's up to his eyeballs in legal debt, just to prove that he had totally legitimate hobby chemicals. It
literally makes me sick to my stomach the degree of zeal and ignorance at play here.
I would end it with something sappy like, "Hopefully we can learn something from this," but I think all we can really glean is that having strange
stuff in your basement is grounds for arrest in America.
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hkparker
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I think I have heard this exact sentence in another article...
"Police said the chemicals posed a "grave risk of death" and were potentially explosive if combined."
This is pretty ridiculous, I wonder what caused them to want to go looking in his home in the first place. I will be most likely moving out of the
college dorm and into a house next year and am probably going to restart my home lab, but things like this make me reconsider...
Also, welcome to the forum  !
My YouTube Channel
"Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature." -Michael Faraday
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Vinylogous
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Someone or something caused a blaze.
| Quote: | | Sanchez's younger brother, Keenan Sanchez, was badly burned in a Dec. 19, 2009, chemical fire that destroyed his home at 151 Adams Place in Delmar.
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I would say, "This is why you don't let your 15 year old brother play with chemicals," but I played with far more dangerous stuff when I was 15. But,
case in point, I was an idiot back then, and nearly got kicked out of high school doing stupid stuff. 
What creative and slightly offbeat people need is a place where they can learn how to do moderately dangerous stuff, safely, because they will find a
way to do it otherwise, and they may well learn safety the hard way.
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AndersHoveland
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acetone, xylene, sulfuric acid, a propane torch, butane fuel, nitric acid
Anything "potentially dangerous" that people do not understand is feared. This is absurd and ridiculous. Countless things in life are potentially
dangerous. That does not mean they should all be restricted.
It was well within the realm of acceptability for him to be storing a small container of flammable liquid or gas in his apartment. The concentrated
acids may have been an issue if he was living on the second level, with people below him. But the overly suspicious police obviously overreacted to
seeing the small collection of "chemicals".
People have burned their homes with stoves or electric heaters, yet neither of these are suspicious "dangerous" items.
There was a time where 12 year old boys were entrusted to use rifles. Those days are completely gone, it seems. The increasing taking away of personal
responsibilities cannot be a good thing.
I would go so far as to say that the public not only has an irrational fear of chemicals, but of explosives also. In any case, chemicals in ones house
certainly does not imply bombs or illegal drugs.
[Edited on 20-10-2011 by AndersHoveland]
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hissingnoise
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That case was reported here but thanks for the update!
I suppose we can only put it down to the times we live in . . .
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fledarmus
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Many of these compounds are classed as hazardous materials. There are rules about how much of each can be stored and what sorts of precautions are
required. As long as he was working within the rules, he shouldn't have a problem, except for the publicity. Even the legal defense shouldn't have to
go any further than explaining to the district attorney that no laws were broken. Case closed.
The problem - and this applies to any hobby you have or anything that you do in life, not just to chemistry - is that the area between explaining to
the district attorney that no laws were broken and having him drop the case (cheap) and proving malicious prosecution (where the idiots trying to
charge you with the crimes end up having to pay all the bills) is HUGE and VERY EXPENSIVE! Not many normal people can afford to go through that.
Couple that with the fact that the laws are so voluminous, serpentine, and paralyzing (face it, when was the last time you drove 20 miles without
breaking a single law?) that there is always some crime you are guilty of, and you end up with the result that anybody with enough sense can bankrupt
anybody else over almost any activity they find objectionable. Police could confiscate essentially anything in your house on the grounds that it could
possibly pose a hazard to somebody or other, was obtained as the result of illegal activity, or could be used as evidence of something totally
different. After all, how many drug raids do you read about where the papers trumpet that the police recovered large amounts of cash, legal handguns,
and pornography (all of which are perfectly legal), and somewhere in the fine print you find that either minimal or no drugs were actually discovered?
And the way the police are avoiding liability now, all it takes is one person saying that they are concerned about one thing that they've seen,
thought they saw, or heard about in your house for them to come in, bag up everything, and dump the whole mess into the district attorney's lap to
sort out.
By the way, what was the outcome on the RPI case? A single count of "obstructing government administration" and a $200 fine? What was that for,
telling the local EPA they couldn't come in and look at his house and making them get a court order?
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Vinylogous
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So, this hits actually way closer to home than I realized. I'm with my friend right now who has met the Sanchez family (brilliant folks, the whole lot
of them) and we've both met his business, Andrew Zonenberg, who is possibly the most meticulous person I've ever met.
Apparently, the article conflates two separate incidents, the 'chemical' fire, and the nosy neighbor reporting the vacuum chamber, leading to the
'raid' (if it can be called that).
The fire was apparently caused by a gas leak explosion in the house and had nothing to do with what Keenan was working on. Keenan is extremely
intelligent and wouldn't have done something so reckless. Volunteer firefighters responded to the scene and didn't have adequate training (my friend
is saying over my shoulder, "they don't have training, period) and let the house burn to the ground.
And the neighbor reporting the vacuum chamber is just the sad but common case of someone seeing equipment they don't understand and getting scared.
Apparently the cops (either local, state, or fed, he isn't sure) have been monitoring the Sanchez's computer for a while and still giving them a hard
time, unwilling to let it go and admit they were wrong. Keenan actually set up an encrypted channel to communicate with his brother. But I'm sure the
harassment will continue for some time and they're looking for drug or explosives charges to pin on them.
Also, the paper says that Jason is a 'doctoral candidate in computer science,' but my friend informs me that it's in computational neuroanatomy. Leave
it to journalists to butcher that.
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Intergalactic_Captain
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What people should truly fear with situations like this is that A; Once the cops get involved, they will find something to justify their case, and B;
Even if a lawschool dropout could successfully defend the case, the cops are NOT going to back down and bring their actions into question...
Two hypotheticals that I'm sure everyone has thought about at some time...
1 - EVERYONE is violating some sort of local code or regulation or insurance clause... Take the guy living in a house with an attached garage. If
he's any sort of handyman, he probably has a container of gas, some paint thinner, some paint, various aerosol cans, various solvents, a blowtorch,
possibly some booze, and various other flamables in said garage... Most localities have codes regulating the quantities of flamable liquids one can
store in such an area, and odds are they aren't in explosion-proof cabinets. At the same time, if a fire starts in said garage, regardless of the
cause, some insurance prick could make a legally valid claim that he had it coming and as such they're not paying out.
2 - Said average joe also happens to have an allergy problem and has some claritin-D in his medicine cabinet. He's working on a refinishing project
and his suburban neighbors smell some "chemical fumes"... They call the cops, who instantly thinking meth lab, go straight to the DA for a search
warrant. The door is busted down, and after a short while they find solvents in the garage, drain cleaners under the sink, and pseudoephedrine
containing products in the medicine cabinet. Not wanting to admit that they simply stumbled on the average american household, they shoehorn together
a case that suggests this guy may be some kind of drug lord...
...Think about those for a couple minutes, and then try to understand why this guy is being raped - The simple fact that he had a vacuum chamber
further complicates it, as he now had "chemicals" and "lab equipment" at the same time. He simply must be a criminal of some sort, as no normal
citizen could have any possible use for those sorts of things...
If you see me running, try to keep up.
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quicksilver
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This also opens a serious issue of the same ignorance and "chemophobia" in a journalist when reporting on a legal issue. There is a very strong
possibility that the gentleman in question above was totally innocent of any wrong doing. However there also is a possibility that more evidence
existed & was either not released or was over the head of the journalist.
From Country to Country (or even area to area within) there exists variances in the financial expenditure & "politics" involved in any
investigation. Various nation-States had a substantially different attitude about many subjects prior to an event's public impact & substantial
influence this has on re-elections, political appointees, and the use or loss of funds. It's basically useless to play "the blame game" but the facts
are that most news outlets thrive on making money thus we see more sensationalism. The impact of major loss of life via terror in the past decades has
also fed the public's acceptance of "better safe than sorry" when addressing certain issues. Coupling those elements together with ignorance regarding
chemistry & the results are predicable.
This is a complex scenario. It is also a Pandora's Box in terms of Constitutional freedoms & public safety. Both the UK and USA have had
legislation that has serious impact on a variety of Citizen's Rights. Broad impact legislation rarely has the desired effect when implemented in a
reactionary stance toward a complex problem in society. However when complex problems also intermix with ignorance, the outcome is OFTEN wide ranging
public fear & the miscarriage of justice.
EDIT:
This was one of the reasons why I really despised the TV series "Breaking Bad".
[Edited on 22-10-2011 by quicksilver]
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DerAlte
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Slightly OT but in the same vein:
The WHO is alleged to be considering a treaty to 'ban' Mercury
See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44986303/ns/health/
I despair. The whole world had gone mad on me. Ban the UN.
Der Alte
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Intergalactic_Captain
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I really wouldn't worry about the mercury thing, despite the tangential implications in future policy. As an American, I can say that my government
would wholly disregard such a treaty simply due to the whole light-bulb legislation nightmare we've dealt with. Except for the bible-thumpers, most
of us realize that CFL's are a good idea...
Look what happened with the Kyoto Protocol - The rest of you had to deal with it for a decade or so, but we Americans simply said screw it...
International treaties only work if the member nations actually adhere to them, which, in this case, we simply won't...
If you see me running, try to keep up.
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Vinylogous
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Well, I don't know specifically what Sanchez was working on at his house, but I know Zonenburg has been working on hobby-scale etching of silicon
chips to produce microstructures. A totally legal, legitimate hobby. He uses a rig with a power drill to spin-coat wafers that he orders, using
commercial photoresist, then uses inkjet printouts overhead transparencies for the mask and develops with UV germicidal lamps. He uses RPI's filament
evaporator to deposit metal coatings, and etches using over-the-counter HCl and 3% hydrogen peroxide. He also uses nitric acid in some of the
etchings, as well as to remove the protective layer on CMOS chips so he can examine them using the stereomicroscope that some company bought him for a
project.
Nowadays, any home activity that isn't watching football and Jersey Shore is looked at as weird and fringe. Truly sad.
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