Longmont – As investigators carefully removed 673 items of evidence – including 400 different dangerous and explosive chemicals – from the suburban home of an unemployed electrical engineer over the weekend, they made another discovery: enough ammunition to stock a police department armory.
“It was shocking the amount of ammunition that was coming out of that house,” Longmont police Sgt. Tim Lewis said.
The revelation came Monday during the first court appearance for 50-year old Ronald Swerlein, who told police he holds graduate degrees in physics and electrical engineering. He is in the Boulder County Jail on suspicion of explosives possession. According to his arrest report, also released Monday, police found in Swerlein’s house on Sunset Drive such high explosives as nitroglycerine, PETN, thermite and ammonium nitrate.
Boulder County prosecutor Katharina Booth told a judge Monday that those findings were just a “glimpse” of what was discovered. Detectives also found, according to Booth, “more ammunition than the entire Longmont Police Department has,” as well as several guns, books about making explosives and one book called, “Don’t Get Mad, Get Even.”
There were enough explosives to flatten Swerlein’s house, cause damage to other homes and possibly cause numerous casualties, Booth said.
The judge deemed Swerlein a threat to the community and set his bail at $50,000.
Despite those discoveries, authorities say they have found no evidence linking Swerlein to an extremist group or a plot to cause violence.
In an interview with police, Swerlein said he is a “nerd” who dreamed of improving model-rocket fuel technology, according to his arrest report.
Swerlein told police that he started experimenting with the dangerous chemicals after a serious car accident forced him to quit his job at Agilent Technologies in 2004. He said he was looking for a hobby.
“I feel in this particular case that things may not be as they appear,” Swerlein’s attorney, Jeffrey Larson, said in court Monday. “So I would caution everyone in this rush to judgment.”
A family friend who attended the hearing and declined to give his name said Swerlein is a scientist, not a menace.
“This is a hobby, an intellectual curiosity,” the friend said.
Sgt. Lewis said he doubts the chemicals were just for toy rockets.
“The number of rockets that were there do not match the quantity of fuels and explosives,” Lewis said.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
