Earlier this month a bottle bomb was discovered on the lawn of a Lafayette home. Police were called and detonated it. But it could easily have been picked up by an unsuspecting adult or child, and cost them their sight, or a hand.
Bottle bombs are the latest trend in pranks. A lot of youngsters have a fascination for things that blow up, and bottle bombs are extremely easy to make, with ingredients that are found around most typical homes. We won't provide the recipe here, but it, like most everything these days, is a mere Google search away.
In addition to exploding the devices in wooded areas and other places where the risk of getting caught is minimal, it has become common for bottle bombs to be left on lawns, where they make get mistaken for garbage and picked up. A detonation is highly unlikely to be fatal, but at close range it could blind a person, or cause severe burns to the face, hands and arms.
If you see a plastic bottle on your property and you're not sure how it got there, be very careful to approach it carefully. It it appears to have liquid and foil inside, get away quickly and call police.
It would be nice if these kids would put as much effort into their chemistry class.