Soldier Gets Jail Time in Chlorine Gas Bombing at Installation’s Gates

A former Fort Polk soldier was sentenced to 135 months on Monday for the creation of a chlorine bomb he detonated outside of the installation’s gates last year, injuring investigators at the scene.

Ryan Keith Taylor, 25, was sentenced by a federal judge in Lafayette to the maximum sentence of just over 11 years after accepting a plea deal in June for producing, possessing and using a chemical weapon in violation of federal law. He will also receive five years of supervised release.

U.S. Attorney David C. Joseph said in a news release announcing the sentence that the chemical weapon Taylor created is banned under international and national laws “because of its terrible effects on the human body.”

Child pornography images were also found inside Taylor’s apartment in New Llano during a search conducted after the incident on April 12, 2017, by Vernon Parish detectives and members of the FBI and the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, however those charges were dropped in accordance with the plea deal.  (American Press, September 26, 2018)

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According to a report by CNN (September 25, 2018) Taylor detonated the bomb on the morning of April 12, 2017, in the Kisatchie National Forest beside the Fort Polk Army base, according to his guilty plea. Three soldiers in the middle of a training exercise nearby heard the blast and found Taylor filming the explosion with his cell phone. The soldiers questioned Taylor and told military police who arrived on scene to investigate, according to the Justice Department.

As police collected samples, one investigator put a rock covered in an unknown substance in a bag, which immediately popped. The investigator's plastic gloves and boots began to melt, his skin began to burn and he had trouble breathing, the Justice Department said in its release.

Taylor was detained and his vehicle was searched, the release said. Investigators found remnants of the bomb and chlorine residue in the car. Law enforcement agents ultimately found bomb-making notes, materials and chemical residue in Taylor's vehicle, apartment and storage building, the Justice Department said.

Taylor did not detonate a bomb at the gates of Fort Polk, but was instead playing with these devices in the Kisatchie National Forest. Military Police apprehended Taylor, and triggered the release of chlorine gas when they mishandled the device / chemicals that Taylor had in his vehicle.

The military police officers who were affected by the gas suffered permanent injuries (severe lung damage).

In any case where explosives or chemical devices are suspected it is essential that EOD and/or chemical DECON personnel be called to the scene.

A 2010 bulletin from the Vermont Fusion Center explains the danger of these devices, and how easy they are to construct.