Two suspects arrested for Harvard Medical School explosion
Nov. 4 (UPI) — Two male suspects were arrested Tuesday morning for allegedly setting off an explosive device inside a Harvard Medical School building early Saturday morning.
The two suspects are Logan David Patterson, 18, of Plymouth, Mass., and Dominick Frank Cardoza, 20, of Bourne, Mass., each of whom is accused of conspiring to damage, by means of an explosive, the Harvard Medical School Goldenson Building at 220 Longwood Ave. in Boston, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.
FBI special agent Erin O’Brien submitted a criminal complaint in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts in which she says there is probable cause that Patterson and Cardoza conspired to damage by fire or explosive device a building owned by an institution that receives federal financial assistance and is used in interstate commerce or in any activity affecting interstate commerce.
O’Brien said surveillance cameras at the intersection of Huntington and Longwood avenues at 2:23 a.m. EDT Saturday recorded two people walking toward the HMS campus.
One was wearing a blue/gray balaclava, a “distinctive” brown sweatshirt, tan sweatpants and white Crocs, while the other wore a blue mask, dark hooded jacket, dark plaid pajama pants and black sneakers.
Surveillance video also shows them lighting what appears to be a Roman candle firework at 2:24 a.m. before video from another camera shows them climbing over a chain-link fence and entering a construction area surrounding the Goldenson Building.
They climbed scaffolding next to the Goldenson Building to access its roof at 2:36 a.m., and Harvard University Police responded to a fire alarm on the building’s fourth floor at about 2:45 a.m.
The suspects exited the building via its first-floor emergency exit that leads to a courtyard, where each fled on foot in opposite directions, O’Brien said.
Harvard police found evidence of an explosive device detonating inside a wooden locker in the building’s fourth-floor research lab, which an FBI bomb technician said likely was a large commercial firework after inspecting its remains.
Soon after the alarm alerted police, a surveillance camera recorded one of the suspects removing clothing while sitting on a bench and depositing them in a garbage bin near Longwood Avenue and Autumn Street.
Footage recorded by a security camera at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, which is near the Goldenson Building, shows the other suspect on the campus at 3:09 a.m., entering a residential campus building and charging his phone and then using it to talk to someone at 3:23 a.m.
That suspect had removed his brown sweatshirt and tan pants and left the building soon after, met the other suspect and another individual, and the three walked to the Massachusetts College of Art and Design campus at 3:49 a.m., according to O’Brien.
Several Wentworth students identified Patterson and Cardoza as the suspects and said Patterson told them of his participation in the incident.
The witnesses said the pair told them that they allegedly placed an explosive cherry bomb firework in a locker and shut it before it exploded.
O’Brien said images of the two suspects match those that are posted on social media and that are maintained by the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Each faces up to five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine if convicted of conspiring to damage the university building.
An arraignment hearing for each suspect had not been scheduled as of Tuesday afternoon.