Houston Man Attempts to Blow Up Confederate Statue of Richard Dowling – Gets Arrested

A man from Houston, Texas, has been charged after trying to plant explosives at the statue of Confederate officer Richard Dowling in Hermann Park.

As The Houston Press reports, the police caught him just in time:

Andrew Cecil Schneck, 25, has been charged with “attempting to maliciously damage or destroy property receiving federal financial assistance” after a park ranger saw him hiding in the bushes near the General Richard Dowling monument, preparing to detonate an explosive, the authorities said. The statue of Dowling, a Houstonian who served as a Confederate officer during the Civil War, is one of hundreds of monuments to the Confederacy that have come under increased scrutiny after a white supremacist rally in Virginia supporting such memorials became violent.

On Saturday evening, hours after hundreds protested in downtown Houston against the city’s Confederate statues, the park ranger found Schneck at the foot of the statue, “among the bushes,” holding several small boxes including what appeared to be duct tape and wires, court documents state. When the ranger confronted Schneck, he told Schneck to place the boxes on the ground. Schneck then took a drink from a plastic bottle he was holding, then immediately spit it out, according to the complaint. After noticing a timer in one of Schneck’s boxes, the ranger called police.

He faces up to 40 years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine. Once confronted, he attempted to drink some of the explosive liquid but spit it out. That’s crazy, as nitroglycerin and hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, in their purest forms, are very explosive and deadly.

More deadly materials were found at his home.

This is a breaking news story. We will have more details as they become available.

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