FBI Arrests Two Massachusetts Men in Connection With Explosion at Harvard Medical Building
“Setting off an explosive device inside a locker at an institution geared toward higher education is not some harmless college prank. It’s selfish, it’s shortsighted and it’s a federal crime.”
As we mentioned in a recent Quick Take, last week, there was an explosion in a Harvard Medical School building at night that authorities said was intentional. Two masked suspects appeared in surveillance footage.
This week, the FBI arrested two young men from Massachusetts who they say carried out the act.
FOX News reports:
FBI arrests 2 men in connection with Harvard Medical School explosion
The FBI’s Boston Field Office has announced that two men in Massachusetts have been arrested in connection with an explosion at Harvard Medical School on Saturday.
Logan David Patterson, 18, and Dominick Frank Cardoza, 20, were arrested in connection with offenses related to the use of an explosive device, the FBI said in a Tuesday news conference.
The arrests were made by the FBI’s Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force, with assistance from the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD).
Officials said that the pair caused the explosion by setting off a Roman candle firework. The firework went off inside a wooden locker in the fourth-floor research laboratory, which is part of the Department of Neurobiology, according to an affidavit.
Video surveillance captured the pair climbing scaffolding and entering the building before the blast, officials said.
Prosecutors said the men were visiting from Wentworth College, a nearby technical university, for Halloween social activities before the explosion.
Ted Dox, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Field Office, said that the suspects’ actions could have led to serious injuries.
“This explosive device had the potential to cause significant injury to anyone nearby — but only by sheer luck, and because of a rapid response by first responders, no lives were lost, no one was injured and property damage was limited,” Dox said.
“Setting off an explosive device inside a locker at an institution geared toward higher education is not some harmless college prank. It’s selfish, it’s shortsighted and it’s a federal crime.”
More from WCVB News:
Patterson and Cardoza made their initial appearance in federal court Tuesday afternoon. The charge carries a sentence of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
They were both ordered to stay away from all Harvard buildings and cannot handle any firearms or fireworks.
Both suspects did not answer questions while leaving court.
However, one of their lawyers told reporters his client is a “good kid” with no record.
He also says he doesn’t believe this matter should be in federal court to begin with.
Officials said an explosive detonated within a wooden locker just before 3 a.m. Saturday on the fourth floor of Harvard’s Goldenson Building, which is on the university’s medical campus at 220 Longwood Ave.
You can’t blame the defense attorney for trying to downplay the charges but the fact that the FBI is even involved in this suggests it’s much more serious than the suspects probably imagined.
FBI Boston’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, with Harvard Police and local partners, swiftly arrested two suspects in the Harvard Medical School explosion.
This FBI will always act decisively to protect the public. pic.twitter.com/dSwK7eqgK2
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) November 4, 2025
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Back in 1974 my friend jumped out of a car and placed a Roman candle in the coin slot of a payphone on the corner of a busy intersection (Broad St. and Warwick Ave near Norwood Ave). The device was angled up so as to shoot its colored balls of fire up and over the intersection. He lit it, jumped in the car and
Ithe driver took off. While this involved a city street and a piece of phone company equipment (neither of which was damaged), the statute of limitations passed for this heinous act of terrorism. I’d hate to have to have lived with this memory for over 51 years.“no record”???
these days that means 12 previous arrests and a lefty judge who expunged the records
Or, it means… no record.
your trust of the government is on you
I dont trust these woke fks
What makes you think they’re woke?
Did you notice what state this happened in? What makes you think they’re anything BUT woke?
The fact that someone is in a specific state gives no indication about that individual’s opinions. Especially if he’s there as a student, and therefore might actually come from anywhere. I see nothing in this story to indicate what their politics are; they might be woke, or they might be MAGA, or anything in between.
Nobody is talking about the students, Milhouse, they’re talking about the local government.
I would bet high stakes at long odds this was NOT the only such prank this pair have pulled. Just the only time they got caught. I remember well in a distant past “exploring” the glories o the old pyrotechnic devices available on indian resevvations and in any town near 4th July. We did some things that really shook us up.. which could have been deadly..
One thing we did NOT do was blow these devices INSIDE any structure.
Kudos to these lads. They somehow avoided being feminized by the harridans running higher education. Boys will be boys.
Get off your high horse and man up, LI.
These look like two white, male, U.S. citizens. In other words: members of the privileged Oppressor class. They shouldn’t expect much leniency from the woke MA judge.
One has a surname from a Protected Class, though.
Portuguese aren’t a protected class. Not in Rhode Island.
Portuguese are not considered “Hispanic” so are not officially protected (I know, I’m half Portagee – mother’s maiden name was Barreiro, her parents entered the country through Ellis Island).
But in RI, they are very well represented and a Portagee defendant might do well with 2 or 3 on the jury.
When I was a kid, while driving around in various towns and cities in RI, we used to spot “Portagee” houses by the multiple bright colors they were painted. They also often had a “bathtub Virgin Mary” in the front yard.
Most of the original influx into the Fall River area were from the Azores and left their beautiful little North Atlantic islands to seek a better life. I have a cousin, M. Vasconcelos, by marriage, who is a great guy and had a nice job at Polaroid back in the day, Honestly, if I were a little younger and healthier (and the Democrat Socialist States of America continued on its current trajectory) I would consider moving to one of the other islands of the Azores to spend my final days.
As kids we tended to poke fun at the Portuguese community, but they are hard working. I guess I’ve softened as I’ve gotten closer to the finish line.
Without going too far into my ancestry… before those photos were available, I saw the first and last name of that perp and had to do some mental math with his age to ensure myself he wasn’t a cousin.
I remember that house-spotting! My father referred to one color as “Portagee blue.”
if they say they did it for “the cause”
then they might get a “pr sentencing” so it looks tough ( to keep pam bondi away)
but they will skate by when no one is looking
Doesn’t look white to me
I don’t know that a roman candle warrants federal prosecution, and I am leery of:
It’s a roman candle, not a stick of dynamite. The biggest concern is a fire.
My elder sis married into a family of firefighters – and became one herself.
Fire is never a small concern.
Aside from the factoid they set it of in a “WOODEN locker” setting a roman candle off indoors is not a bad way to burn a building down – failing timely firefighter response.
Even of you shrug off intent to do property damage – any arson of a large public building has an indecent chance of turning any occupants into what firefighters when exposed to the macabre results of trapped victims sometimes refer to as “crispy critters” – horrific corpses contorted by extreme heat to resemble Hollywood horror-film props.
No one died and damage was possibly only a few 10s of thousands instead of demolishing and rebuilding the target building – but malicious stupidity of this level requires prison (and fines), not a slap on the wrist and community service.
I AM a firefighter and have lit off hundreds of Roman Candles. They are a toy. A few carelessly discarded cigarettes pose as much danger. A stupid prank is a stupid prank – 6 months max. I would prefer effirts were concentrated on finding the Jan 6 pipe bombers but they are feds.
Search Assist
Yes, Roman candles can be very dangerous as they are responsible for numerous injuries each year, including burns and eye injuries. They should only be used according to safety guidelines, such as being placed securely on the ground and away from people and flammable materials.
search assist
“biggest concern is fire”
so you are dismissing the fact that a rc has a flame
Search Assist
Yes, Roman candles can be very dangerous as they are responsible for numerous injuries each year, including burns and eye injuries. They should only be used according to safety guidelines, such as being placed securely on the ground and away from people and flammable materials.
I agree, in the 60’s early& 70’s I and college students older then me pulled all sorts of similar stunts. It was endless, from dusting faculty toilet seats with silver nitrate to setting off a demo volcano, in my senior year to get all of us an afternoon off for half a day. Or dissolving yellow phosphorus in carbon disulfide to put on non combustible surfaces. It would smolder, people would throw water on it, as soon as it died it started smoldering again. And there was so much more. They should only be mildly punished, it sounds to me like they will become productive citizens.
“The firework went off inside a wooden locker in the fourth-floor research laboratory, which is part of the Department of Neurobiology”
Having spent numerous years in neurobiology laboratories I am more concerned about the possibility of a fire in a wooden cabinet spreading. Such labs contain dangerous chemicals, flammable materials and radioactive materials which would imperil first responders and others in the area. Perhaps not a high probability but not a zero probability.
“You can’t blame the defense attorney for trying to downplay the charges but the fact that the FBI is even involved in this suggests it’s much more serious than the suspects probably imagined.”
Oh come on. This is Massachusetts, where Biden-approved illegal aliens deplaning on Martha’s Vineyard justifies calling out the National Guard.
“They were both ordered … cannot handle any firearms or fireworks.”
Which, in Massachusetts, means those are DOUBLE illegal.
“a wooden locker in the fourth-floor research laboratory, which is part of the Department of Neurobiology”
Defense tip for a woke state: plead “neurodiversity.”
Typical lib bullshit–can’t “handle firearms.” What do firearms have to do with this. Might as well tell them they can’t drive a car or use a microwave. Any excuse to deny 2A rights.
Amazing how they quickly found a couple stupid kids doing a prank yet the J6 pipe bombers are still at large years later.
It’s harder when “the call is coming from inside the building.”
So they were “good boys” until they weren’t?
This seems a bit circular. The attorney is saying “Why is this even in federal court in the first place?” and you answer “Because the FBI is involved”. But why was the FBI involved? What about it justifies federal involvement. Apparently the answer is simply because it happened at a college that receives federal money, i.e. all of them. And if Trump got his way and cut off all Harvard’s money then it wouldn’t be a federal issue. So he has a point.
Two complete clowns and losers. On a more serious note… Polish terrorists blew up a Kielbasa factory in Warsaw. No reported casualties.
I really hope that this comes down to a more reasonable charge of mischief and a fine/pay for damages. It really has all the signs of a drunken prank with some low level fireworks that can be easily bought 40 minutes north in NH.
Let’s please not destroy these two lives for what turned out to be a dumb thing to do.
They set off a roman candle in a locker. At Halloween.
All the hysteria over “an explosive device at Harvard” and it’s a roman candle..
What’s next? Shutting down the eastern seaboard because someone dumped pop-its all over a street?
The harm done by This incident is that now university labs all over the country will have to ramp up security to prevent more serious copycat explosions. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, may have been stopped from blowing up an airplane by an alert stewardess but the harm done by the incident has been immense. Every day, millions of airline passengers were inconvenienced by having to remove their shoes in order to board their flights. The billions of hours that were lost in this maddening process to make airline travel safe was just one of the ways individual acts of terrorist type violence has deteriorated the quality of life for everyone.
That’s one way to look at it.
Another is that the real damage was done by the inevitably brainless government response to this incident, which substituted performance theatre for actual security improvements. Taking off your shoes is quantitatively equivalent to forcing everyone to wear Harbor Freight dust masks in public for over a year, and equally useless.