TX City bomb suspect may be bound for mental hospital

Curtis Jetton, the man injured in a Texas City apartment explosion last week, may be headed to a mental hospital rather than to jail, the Galveston County Daily News reports.

Jetton, 21, was set to appear before a U.S. district magistrate Tuesday to be arraigned on charges of unlawful possession of a firearm ("firearm" in the charge refers to "a destructive device" — here, explosives and detonators), but public defender Thomas Berg asked Magistrate John Froeschner to consider committing Jetton to a psychiatric hospital instead. "The kid's had a history of mental health issues," Berg said, explaining that Jetton wasn't out to harm anyone when he and roommate Matthew Rugo were messing around with explosives July 19. “There’s no underlying plot here, other than the joy of watching stuff explode, which is fairly juvenile,” Berg said — which we guess means the report that the pair might have been involved with an anarchist group was wrong, just as one person said in our comments.

If he is arraigned, Jetton faces up to 30 and a half years in prison: 10 years on the federal charge, 20 years on a state explosives possession charge and six months for reportedly making a false report to a police officer.