A mechanic who worked at General Electric in New York spent the past several years perfecting a deadly, truck-mounted radiation weapon. According to the FBI, he tried to sell it to some Jews in his area, whom he figured could hand it over to Israel. Failing that, he tried to sell it to some friends in the KKK.


Glendon Scott Crawford is an industrial mechanic in Galway, NY, and he loves to play with electronics. He is also allegedly a member of the KKK. One day he decided it would be really cool to develop a mobile radiation beam that could hit an unwitting target.

According to the Times Union:

The device was intended to be a truck-mounted radiation particle weapon that could be remotely controlled and capable of silently aiming a lethal beam of radioactivity at its human targets. The concept was that victims would eventually die from radiation sickness. [Crawford] is accused in a federal complaint of developing "a radiation emitting device that could be placed in the back of a van to covertly emit ionizing radiation strong enough to bring about radiation sickness or death against Crawford's enemies," states the complaint attributed to an FBI agent . . . The investigation broke open in April 2012 when Crawford allegedly went into an Albany synagogue and "asked to speak with a person who might be willing to help him with a type of technology that could be used by Israel to defeat its enemies, specifically, by killing Israel's enemies while they slept," the complaint says. He referred to Muslims and enemies of the United States as "medical waste," according to court records.


And that, folks, is the dark side of the DiY electronics movement.

Read more at the Times-Union. (h/t Nick Confessore)