Teacher gets arrested for... teaching.

[Blazer06]

http://www.local6.com/news/4202621/detail.html

David Pieski, 42, used an overhead projector in class to give instructions in making explosives to students at Freedom High School, including advising them to use an electric detonator to stay clear from the blast, an Orange County sheriff's arrest report said.

In Pieski's classroom, authorities said they found the chemical breakdown for an explosive used by Middle East suicide bombers. It was not clear if the information found in a book labeled "Demo" was shared with students, the arrest report said.

Video



Police: Teacher Instructed Students On Bomb-Making




One student said he set off an explosive device at a golf course on Jan. 6 and videotaped it, an arrest warrant showed. The videotape shows an explosion, and the voice of a young man can be heard shouting.

Local 6 News aired the videotape Wednesday.

"You can see by the nature of the explosion the significant boom with a significant fire ball," Orange County Sheriff's Office spokesman Jim Solomons said. "So, had someone been in close proximity to that device and it exploded prematurely, they could have been seriously hurt."

Pieski was charged with possessing or discharging a destructive device and culpable negligence. Pieski, who was booked into the Orange County Jail on Monday, declined comment. He was later released on $1,000 bail.

School district area Superintendent Judy Cunningham said Pieski was reassigned to a desk job in her office after he was interviewed by authorities. He is still earning his salary.

Pieski told investigators he detonated chemicals in a coffee can by a ball field four times for his students, the sheriff's office said. He said he did this as a chemistry project to show a reaction rate, the arrest report said.

"Pieski admitted to me that he observed (the student's) video and approved of his successful results," the arrest warrant said. "Pieski disagreed with the project being an explosion."

Pieski guided investigators to an unlocked metal cabinet in the back of a classroom, where there was "a can of black powder stored next to other chemicals," the sheriff's office said.

School officials told investigators that Pieski previously had been told he was not allowed to have any form of explosive on campus.

-Blaze

[ShawnD1]

Oh noes! He must be punished for teaching kids how to do stuff they can easily find in 30 seconds with a quick google search! He must be killedz0rz!

Ok so let me clear this up here.
-it is ok to tell students that nitrates are great oxidizers
-it is ok to tell students that alkali metals and hydrides are great reducers
-it is ok to tell students which organic compounds are oxidized/reduced best, and what they turn into
-it's ok to do demonstrations of how organics and oxidizers/reducers can blow up when mixed together
-it's not ok to put that information on the overhead?

WTF?

[BBA]

When one teaches students on how to make not only a bomb but an eletronic detonation device to go with it...and actually has the black powder in the school, it's a violation of federal law.

I guess the students will learn from that.

[implexant]

When one teaches students on how to make not only a bomb but an eletronic detonation device to go with it...and actually has the black powder in the school, it's a violation of federal law.

I guess the students will learn from that.

Ya, just slightly

-Chris

[ShawnD1]

When one teaches students on how to make not only a bomb but an eletronic detonation device to go with it...and actually has the black powder in the school, it's a violation of federal law.

Making a Bomb:
Organic and Redox chemistry are requirements in highschool chemistry. You can't possibly pass highschool chemistry without learning explosives along the way. If you've taken highschool chemistry before, you'll definitely remember the demonstration where you drop a gummi bear into molten potassium nitrate. Or the demonstration where you drop perchloric acid on sugar. Or the demonstration where you put cotton balls in sulfuric and nitric acid to make explosive nitrated cotton balls.

Electronic Detonation:
Highschool physics teaches students a lot of things about electricity, and chemistry teaches a lot of things about how heat (from electricity?) can make crazy things happen.

Black Powder:
Black powder is actually a combination of very common things. Potassium nitrate and charcoal, or ammonium nitrate and charcoal. What is potassium nitrate? Salt peter. It's a preservative in foods, it's present in some fertilizers, and it was apparently given to soldiers to decrease their sex drive; nothing worse than having a platoon of horney soldiers don't ya know. Charcoal is common as a filtering agent because things adhere to it. Charcoal is what makes your Britta filter work, it's given to people in hospitals who have swallowed certain poisons, and it can often remove colored impurities from organic compounds. Ammonium nitrate is mostly just used in explosives.

People who go crazy for finding "black powder" in a chem lab should be shot. They're probably the same people who panic over the horrors of dihydrogen monoxide being present in their homes.

[BBA]

Making a Bomb:
Organic and Redox chemistry are requirements in highschool chemistry. You can't possibly pass highschool chemistry without learning explosives along the way. If you've taken highschool chemistry before, you'll definitely remember the demonstration where you drop a gummi bear into molten potassium nitrate. Or the demonstration where you drop perchloric acid on sugar. Or the demonstration where you put cotton balls in sulfuric and nitric acid to make explosive nitrated cotton balls.
.

Well, I went through high school chemistry. I even went through nuclear reactor plant chemistry thanks to good ol uncle sam. I never had to learn how to make explosives in any chemistry classes. Guess your wrong.


But...my schools did have shooting ranges and I dont remember anyone ever getting shot.

[chipbgt]

School officials told investigators that Pieski previously had been told he was not allowed to have any form of explosive on campus.

Didnt follow the rules....case closed

[Beemer]

Explosives are so misunderstood.....

Why he would teach anything about an antiquated explosive such as black power is beyond me. There's no application for it anymore other than in munitions. Ammonium-nitrate-based explosives such as Orica Anfo are much more stable to use and store.

We need more trained blasters in our industry. I'm not sure if high school is the place to learn the trade though. How does the teacher know he isn't putting ideas into some future phycotic brain in the classroom? The teacher had to have known he was pushing the edge of the envelope on this one.

Cheers!

[no1_vern]

This is just another one of those "We HAVE GOT to make it look like we are doing something" excerpts from the present day scare tactics being used on the american public. Like the idea of removing nail clippers from people who want to fly in an airplane.

dihydrogen monoxide

O NO, ARRGGGG.




Orica anfo, huh, thanks for the info.

[ShawnD1]

How does the teacher know he isn't putting ideas into some future phycotic brain in the classroom?

If they don't learn it in highschool, they'll learn it in university. I'm only in first year university chemistry and I've already been taught how to make some incredible things: cyclic ethers (incredibly unstable explosives), nitrated organics (TNT?), cyanide gas, and a common date rape drug that prevents the body from breaking down alcohol. That's alongside a nice and effective technique for extracting drugs from plants.

Didnt follow the rules....case closed

Now that is a legitimate reason for getting fired. Guy should have followed the rules.

[LeftCoast]

If, in today's climate, a freaking teacher can't see the problem with showing this to their students, they have no business being around students.

Shawn, where do you go to college, Osama U? I have trouble believing a University professor would show all this to their class (especially the date-rape drug) and still keep their job.

[Xtreeme]

Teaching how to make bombs-for the purpose of only making bombs is STUPID. You can't figure that out-then dont forget to breath. Yikes.

[Atomic Rooster]

"Pieski admitted to me that he observed (the student's) video and approved of his successful results," the arrest warrant said. "Pieski disagreed with the project being an explosion."

What a moron.

[Creatures]

i've got to agree with shawn, you learn such stuff in school, we also learnt how to break down the local power supply station, but i never did it^^ but we learnt this stuff with a connection to a related topic.

the teacher broke a rule, he should be fired, but all in all i dont think it's wrong to show the students how easy it is to create something terrible like a bomb, we should see that science isnt only a good thing it brought a lot of bad things too.

BTW the anarchist cookbook rules^^ i know how to make napalm =) and a granade with a tennis ball and some matches.

Creatures

[ShawnD1]

Shawn, where do you go to college, Osama U? I have trouble believing a University professor would show all this to their class (especially the date-rape drug) and still keep their job.

Washington State University

We also learn how to make EMP bombs in highschool. It's basically just a bunch of capacitors in parallel, a very long piece of thin copper wire wrapped around a solid/pure iron cylinder, and some kind of switch.