Houston man charged with trying to plant bomb at Confederate statue in Hermann Park, by St. John Barned-Smith.

The park ranger spotted him kneeling in the bushes by the 112-year-old Confederate statue, explosives in hand.

Was he trying to harm the statue? she asked.

Yes, he said. He didn’t like the guy.

The late-night confrontation at the statue of Confederate Lt. Dick Dowling — detailed in court records by a federal agent — led to the arrest of 25-year-old Andrew Schneck, setting off a two-day operation by law enforcement that forced the evacuation of the tony Rice University neighborhood where Schneck lives with his parents.

Bomb squad experts detonated a cache of high-powered explosives found on the property Monday afternoon as residents waited to return to their homes. …

The white marble statue of Dowling, an Irish immigrant who lived in Houston and fought for the Confederacy, was erected in 1905 to honor rebel soldiers who died at the Battle of Sabine Pass. A street named for Dowling was changed earlier this year to Emancipation Avenue. …

The media is justifying violence against anything to do with the Confederate states. Maybe that encourages nutters to blow stuff up?

The press approached Black Lives Matter for comment:

“If someone wants to take the initiative and take it down and face the consequences, I’m good with that,” said Ashton Woods, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Houston. “But it becomes another thing if you have explosives enough to blow up your neighborhood and take them to a public park. I completely condemn that. You don’t put people in danger to further your ideology.”

Wow, what epic self-unawareness.