Authorities to analyze powder

The youth told police the white powder they confiscated at Rosemary Clark Middle School was fertilizer, and authorities sent it to Las Vegas to be analyzed to see if it is ammonium nitrate, the same substance used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

The chemical was in a bag seized from the youth that was rigged up to a shotgun shell that apparently was to be the detonator, said Nye County Sheriff Wade Lieseke.

"We have no idea whether it would have detonated and given off noxious smoke or would have detonated and exploded," Lieseke said Tuesday.

During the lunch break at Rosemary Clark Middle School, a security guard noticed a student holding a white trash bag and approached the boy and his friends.

The student holding the bag told the security guard he had the makings of a bomb.

"It appears the kid's intent was to set off some type of stink bomb," Lieseke said. "It was supposed to release a substance that really smelled bad."

The school was evacuated, and the chemicals were sent to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's lab for analysis.

The boy was charged as a juvenile with possession of an explosive device.

archive