Napalm Ingredients, Bullets Seized, Youth Held

Deputies have arrested a 15-year-old boy who was making napalm and had a munitions arsenal he said he was hoarding in anticipation of Year 2000 problems, authorities said.

The boy, whose name was withheld because of his age, attends Norco High School but did not threaten fellow students, teachers or the campus.

In the wake of last week’s killings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., an anonymous tip Sunday led Riverside County sheriff’s deputies to a home on Valley View, said sheriff’s investigator Mark Wasserman. Authorities found jars and a canister filled with materials used to make napalm, which is gasoline thickened to use as an ignitable substance. Also found were 183 rounds of .45-caliber ammunition, 100 9-millimeter bullets, 492 empty 9-millimeter shell casings and firecrackers, he said.

Wasserman said the .45-caliber rounds were stolen from a nearby home.

“The juvenile had been making the napalm with a recipe he downloaded over the Internet,” the investigator said. “The juvenile said he was making the material to get ready for the Y2K and was going to use the material in case the electricity failed during a Y2K crisis.”

The teenager was booked into a juvenile facility Monday for possessing an incendiary device, possession of live ammunition by a minor and possession of stolen property.