[ RadSafe ] 'Radioactive Boy Scout' Charged in Smoke Detector Theft David Hahn Saturday, Aug

[LNMolino at aol.com]

Gee he's really kind of stupid since you can get a smoke detector at Home  
Depot and Wal-Mart for about 5 bucks come Fire Prevention Week. 
 
LNM
 
'Radioactive Boy Scout' Charged in Smoke Detector Theft
David  Hahn
Saturday, August 4th, 2007

DETROIT —  A man who became the  subject of a book called "The Radioactive 
Boy Scout" after trying to build a  nuclear reactor in a shed as a teenager 
has been charged with stealing 16  smoke detectors. Police say it was a 
possible effort to experiment with  radioactive materials.

David Hahn, 31, was being held Friday on a $5,000  bond in the Macomb County 
Jail after he was arraigned Thursday on felony  larceny charges. Clinton 
Township police Capt. Richard Maierle said Hahn  denied the charges.

A district court clerk on Friday said Hahn did not  have an attorney. The 
Associated Press called the jail in an effort to speak  to Hahn, but a 
sheriff's spokesman said the jail does not give messages to  inmates. His 
preliminary examination was scheduled for Aug.  13.

Investigators say Hahn was arrested Wednesday after a maintenance  worker saw 
him stealing a detector from a ceiling in an apartment complex  where he 
lived. They later found the other detectors in his apartment in the  Detroit 
suburb of Clinton Township.

Police say that Hahn's face was  covered with open sores, possibly from 
constant exposure to radioactive  materials. [Or maybe exposure to meth or 
something else -  
http://www.foxnews.com/images/303168/0_61_080407_David_Hahn.jpg - JH  ]

Hahn learned that a small amount of a radioactive isotope could be  found in 
smoke detectors during his experiments in the 1990s, according to a  1998 
article in Harper's Magazine that later expanded into a book by  journalist 
Ken Silverstein.

Maierle said his department evacuated the  apartment complex and called the 
state police bomb squad, which found no  hazardous materials.

He said officials learned in January that Hahn had  returned to the area 
after serving in the U.S. Navy.

"Because of his  past, we were a tad bit concerned," he said, adding his 
department alerted  the FBI when they found out he was back in Michigan. "We 
didn't want any  other radioactive sites to pop up."

Hahn's first brush with authorities  came in August 1994, after police 
stopped him during an investigation into  neighborhood tire thefts. Officers 
found radioactive materials, chemicals,  rocks, plastic and glass bottles and 
two exploded pipes in his car, Maierle  said.

In a subsequent interview with a state health official, Hahn said  he had 
been trying to produce energy and hoped it would help him earn his  Eagle 
Scout badge, according to the Harper's article. Hahn also acknowledged  
having a backyard laboratory in a potting shed at his mother's home in  
Oakland County's Commerce Township, the article said.

Authorities  declared the structure a hazardous materials site and sealed it. 
Crews from  the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency led a Superfund cleanup 
in 2005  that included dismantling the shed and shipping its remains to be 
buried at  a low-level radioactive waste site in Utah, the article said.

Hahn  received a Scouting merit badge for atomic energy in 1991, the article  
said.

Maierle said Hahn's 1994 arrest was expunged in 1996. His  arrest this week 
was reported by The Macomb Daily of Mount  Clemens.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292111,00.html
 
Louis N.  Molino, Sr., CET
FF/NREMT-B/FSI/EMSI
Owner and President of LNM Emergency  Services Consulting Services (LNMECS)
Freelance  Consultant/Trainer/Author/Journalist/Fire Protection  Consultant

LNMolino at aol.com

979-412-0890 (Cell  Phone)
979-690-7559 (IFW/TFW/FSS Office)
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