My article on The News & Observer’s coverage of Jarrett Brown, the Fuquay-Varina kid being accused of WMD possession because of pipe bombs he transported in his car, must be circulating among his friends and family after its publication three weeks ago. I received another e-mail from a Brown defender this morning:

I am VERY disappointed about your August 12th article on Jarrett Brown. Do you know him personally? If you did, I know for a fact you would never even THINK of writing such a degrading and sarcastic article about him.

I am a good friend of his, and I know he would NEVER hurt anybody with the pipe bombs and that he did indeed make them out of CURIOSITY. What kind of a human being are you to judge someone based on what you’ve heard in the news? Being in the news business yourself, I would expect you to know that the majority of the time the media blows stories out of proportion or twists the news to attract readers, without actually telling the TRUTH.

He is now out of jail and on house arrest, proving that even the LAW agrees that the pipe bombs were NOT weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps you should take another look at Jarrett Brown and not be so judgmental in the future.

The N&O reports today about Brown’s hearing yesterday, in which he indeed was placed on house arrest. But the Wake County district attorney is not convinced that Brown had no malicious intent:

Wake Assistant District Attorney Tom Ford told Wake District Judge Monica M. Bousman that he still is not sure what Brown intended to do with the devices. Ford spoke of data on Brown’s computer that “concerns me as to what the intent was.”

He asked Bousman to order Brown to be evaluated psychologically to determine whether he meant to harm anyone. Ford said the homemade devices were “much more dangerous than had been reported.”

“I don’t know if he knew it or not, but they definitely were,” Ford said. “I want to make sure that he didn’t know that.”

Meanwhile, The N&O continued to report questionable claims without challenge:

Greg Brown (Jarrett’s father) said the boy’s lawyer, Vaughan S. Winborne Jr. of Raleigh, is trying to get the felony charges reduced to misdemeanor charges of possession of pyrotechnics. E-mail that Jarrett Brown sent to his friends indicated he was trying to make fireworks, Greg Brown said.

Jarrett’s friends, some wearing T-shirts with his photograph emblazoned on the front and the words “It was only firecrackers” across the back, embraced the father outside the courtroom.

Greg Brown, who had a stack of letters and e-mail from Jarrett’s classmates, Scout leaders, neighbors and a teacher, said the boy’s jailers were not so happy to see him go. “The guards like him there, the inmates like him there,” Greg Brown said.

Until they get to the bottom of this, I like him there also.