Screaming Penguin

Theodore Hollot, an 18-year-old engineering major, appeared at two separate hearings Wednesday morning on a felony charge of possessing a destructive device and a misdemeanor of reckless conduct. During the first hearing, Hollot was given a public defender. However, a second hearing was held when an attorney for Hollot and Hollot's father appeared inside the courtroom. Hollot faced the judge while wearing a Georgia Tech T-shirt and answered "yes" and "no" to his questions. After setting bond, the judge barred Hollot from the campus of Georgia Tech until his suspension from the school is resolved. A campus panel is due to hear his case over the next several days. Hollot's roommate apparently persuaded him to turn himself into campus police a day after witnessing the widespread panic caused by what may simply have been a prank gone too far. “We are very relieved to report that we have a suspect in custody,� Amelia Gambino, Georgia Tech’s assistant vice president, told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “What he’s told us is that he was throwing them out his window, so he threw them out of the window and where they were found was where they fell.� Hollot, of Pennsylvania, told campus police he dropped as many as a dozen of such homemade bombs from his second-story dorm window, authorities said. Apparently, all but one of the bombs exploded as Hollot dropped them. He spent Tuesday night inside the Fulton County jail. His next court appearance is scheduled for Oct. 19. An Atlanta police major initially labeled the incident “a terrorist act,� which drew the attention of numerous law enforcement agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force. The case was remanded to local authorities. Some Tech students told 11Alive News they thought the 18-year-old should be disciplined, but wondered if serving jail time was going too far. Emily Jester said, “It just seems like it just kind of got out of hand. “I mean, I can understand like a disciplinary [measure], something by the school or like some kind of probation, maybe not living at the residence hall anymore, but I can’t see them putting him in jail,� she said.[ed emphasis mine]

OUR OPINION A textbook case of overreaction Published on: 10/13/05 A tip about raising boys: It's hard to keep them away from Whoopee cushions, bugs and things that blow up, even when they're 18-year-old Eagle Scouts who should know better. Clearly, Georgia Tech freshman Theodore Hollot deserves a serious reprimand for the campus water bottle bombs that set off a panic, brought in a bomb squad and evacuated dormitories. But it's absurd to classify Hollot's prank as a terroristic threat; neither the university nor police should treat it as such. Hollot admitted to concocting three explosive water bottles — probably using dry ice — and putting them in a campus courtyard this week. One went off in a custodian's hands, but the man was not seriously injured; he only complained of ringing in his ears. A nuclear and radiological engineering major from Pennsylvania, Hollot made a stupid mistake in underestimating how intolerant colleges, even those that produce rocket scientists, are of explosive shenanigans. In this post-Sept. 11 world, technowizards can't even risk throwing a firecracker on campus. However, students at technology institutes are fabled for their pyrotechnics and their pranks. In one of the most memorable displays, Massachusetts Institute of Technology students exploded a weather balloon at the 1982 Harvard-Yale football game; the black balloon, bearing the legend MIT on its side, inflated by remote control near the 50-yard line and then burst into a cloud of talcum powder. Of course, that was before the threat of terrorism became all too real. Today, that puff of powder might be confused with something more ominous. MTV has built a franchise of shows featuring young men doing idiotic things. Perhaps we should just consider Hollot a prime example of the genre and move on.