John Montgomery Presents This Week's	February 3, 2001	Creep Logo by Alan Fraser
	Al DeGuzman
	This is Your Brain on Bombs and Stupidity

Looks like we're making progress in the fight against armed, hate-filled students who spray their schools with bullets and emotional trauma: They're getting much stupider. Too stupid to be able to pull off their capers. If this trend continues, we'll have to send them all to remedial special ed classes to learn the basic, elementary lessons of school killings. Lessons like "Don't take a picture of yourself with your weapons and then bring the film to the drug store to be developed." Those guys at Columbine may have been evil, deranged little bastards, but they weren't that dumb.

In San Jose, California this week, police arrested 19-year-old Al DeGuzman, charging him with 122 felony counts including possession of explosives, possession with intent to cause great bodily injury and possession of a sawed-off rifle and shotgun. In Al's bedroom, they found 30 pipe bombs and 20 Molotov cocktails, along with magazine articles about the Columbine Kids, writings worshipping them and pictures of them on the wall. They also found a diagram of Al's school, De Anza Community College, with notes indicating he intended to plant the bombs at 4:30 AM Tuesday and blow up the cafeteria at 12:30 PM. Al also made a "bone chilling" audio tape apologizing to his parents, friends and the news media. The parents, in whose house this enormous stash was found, claimed (Sergeant Schultz style) that they knew nothing, respected Al's privacy and never entered his bedroom.

How'd he get caught, then? Al took pictures of himself surrounded with his pipe bombs, guns and ammunition, then brought the film to the local drug store to get developed. A clerk in the photo lab saw the pictures and called the cops. Hasn't Al ever heard of digital cameras or camcorders? Apparently the rolling power blackouts in California are having an effect on brain power also.

Of course, Al proclaims innocence. His lawyer, Craig Wormley, says, "Mr. DeGuzman has merely an innocent fascination with the items that were seized." I'll admit that if they ever start making fantasies a crime, I'd be one of the first to be immersed into unspeakably deep doo-doo, but Al seems to have crossed that annoying line between fantasy and reality. "People fantasize -- they don't go out and collect the material to build 60 bombs. That's beyond fantasy," said Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Lane Liroff.

As to the question of Why, Al has left a few clues around. It shouldn't surprise you to learn that he's a prolific writer on the internet. “Eric Harris is God. He's my savior,” was one such gem. He also lashed out against politicians, social classes and people of all ethnic groups including his own Filipinos. Deputy Police Chief Mike Miceli said, "He hated everyone." Maybe Al should have released his tense anxieties by creating a web site where each week he'd pick someone who'd really pissed him off and ..... oh, never mind.

If Al gets convicted on all counts, he could get sent to the pokey for 108 years. I hate to make suggestions to anyone as touchy as Al seems to be, but perhaps he could use his prison time constructively by going to photo lab school.