Longmont bomb team redeploys

Christine Reid, Daily Camera

Published June 20, 2007 at midnight

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LONGMONT — A search Tuesday night for vitamins in a home police had previously raided for explosive materials turned into a full-blown deployment of a bomb team for the second time in a week.

Officers — who went back to the house at 2404 Sunset Drive to collect a refrigerator shelf full of vitamins that they learned after their initial search could be used in bomb-making — said they came across another highly explosive liquid that had been overlooked.

Some neighbors broke out lawn chairs to watch a small army of police and bomb experts at about 6 p.m.

Paul Hardy kidded that he needed to make T-shirts saying: "I survived the Sunset bomber."

"I could make some money off this," Hardy said.

Over the weekend, Ronald Swerlein, 50, was arrested on suspicion of having dangerous chemicals — including a half-pound of nitroglycerin, the main ingredient in dynamite. He was released from the Boulder County Jail on Tuesday afternoon after posting a $50,000 bond.

Swerlein, a retired electrical engineer, is expected back in court Friday to be formally charged.

Longmont police Sgt. Tim Lewis said a city bomb technician attended a training session this week and learned that chemicals could be extracted from vitamins and used as a bomb component.

"Vitamins?" Lewis said he asked out of surprise. "There's so much going on in this case."

Authorities were also interested in taking some rock tumblers that had previously been seen inside the home, which they learned can be used in the bomb-making process as well.

About an hour into the second search, police discovered a bottle of M.E.K.P. behind some bags of sidewalk de-icer in the basement. The bomb squad was called to help get rid of the highly explosive liquid, which ispartly responsible for the current ban of liquids on planes.

Police called 29 homes on the street at about 9 p.m. to warn them that they may have to evacuate, but they were able to determine the M.E.K.P. was diluted enough to remove and take elsewhere to destroy.

Police on Tuesday also seized paperwork as well as television remotes and cellular phones found in Swerlein's bedroom workshop that they said could be used as bomb triggers.

They plan to continue the search this morning.

Swerlein and his wife, Julie Dadone, were forced out of their home Friday night with tear gas. They drove by their house several times Tuesday night as police worked, but they did not stop. They will not be permitted back into the home until city officials deem it safe, according to police.

More than 400 chemicals have been taken from the home, including plastic explosive ingredient P.E.T.N. and ammonium nitrate — the explosive used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Swerlein told police that he was teaching himself about rocket-fuel technology. He bought the chemicals for his garage experiments online and had them shipped by paying a hazardous-materials fee, according to an arrest report. He told police that his favorite shopping spot is www.chemsavers.com.

Wayne Mosley, a chemist at the Virginia-based company, called Swerlein a regular customer.

"When anyone gets arrested ... it does surprise me because everyone is watching," Mosley said.

Companies that sell chemicals must turn over names of their customers anytime the federal government asks, Mosley said, and when certain quantities or certain chemicals are purchased, they are required to turn over that information.

The company's customers are mostly businesses, Mosley said, but some are individuals. The company checks ages — to ensure the buyers are 21 — and criminal histories when selling particular chemicals to weed out any undesirable customers.

"But you really don't know what people are doing sometimes," Mosley said. "Even the ones you think are totally upfront."

Contact Camera Staff Writer Christine Reid at 303-473-1355 or reidc@dailycamera.com

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