Highland man charged with making, throwing Molotov cocktails at BYU

A Highland man was charged Friday with five felonies accusing him of making Molotov cocktails and throwing them around the BYU campus last fall.

A Highland man was charged Friday with five felonies accusing him of making Molotov cocktails and throwing them around the BYU campus last fall. (Atthapon Niyom, Shutterstock)


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PROVO — A Highland man was charged Thursday with making Molotov cocktails and throwing them around the BYU campus, including near the Missionary Training Center.

Ole Tait Jensen, 19, is charged in 4th District Court with five counts of possession of an explosive, chemical or incendiary device, a second-degree felony.

On Oct. 25, surveillance video recorded two Molotov cocktails being thrown on 900 East in front of the security booth at the Missionary Training Center, according to charging documents. Another was thrown on University Avenue near Helaman Halls and two more were dropped from a parking structure next to the Tanner Building on the BYU campus.

Police traced the vehicle back to Jensen and determined he and three others were in the vehicle that night, the charges state.

"(Jensen) admitted to being the person who came up with the idea, purchased the materials and made the Molotov cocktails. (He) refused to identify his companions and insisted they had nothing to do with the incident," the charging documents say.

A spokeswoman for BYU police says the Molotov cocktails landed in the road and there was no damage to any structure. When Jensen, who was a student at BYU at the time, was initially questioned by officers about a possible motive, he allegedly said it was "a stupid thing to do and doesn't know why he did it," according to police.

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Pat Reavy interned with KSL NewsRadio in 1989 and has been a full-time journalist for either KSL NewsRadio, Deseret News or KSL.com since 1991. For the past 25 years, he has worked primarily the cops and courts beat.

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