liz_marcs: Jeff and Annie in Trobed's bathroom during Remedial Chaos Theory (Calvin_Gasoline)
liz_marcs ([personal profile] liz_marcs) wrote2007-02-01 03:17 pm

As It Turns Out: Boston Officials May Have Had a Very Good Reason to Over-React

It appears that one thing that has been overlooked in yesterday's great Lite Brite Chaos.

As it turns out, there were actually two legitimate bomb threats in two separate incidents yesterday.

While the pipe bombs were themselves fake, they apparently looked real enough. The reason why the Longfellow Bridge was shut down wasn't because of Lite Brites, but because of one of the fake pipe bombs. Same thing with the evacuation of a medical office for Tufts-New England Medical Center on Harrison Ave.

The police already have the a suspect for the Tufts case, but not for the Longfellow Bridge case.

When were the simulated pipe bombs found? Right around 1 p.m., shortly before city and state officials realized the Lite Brites didn't pose a danger.

Suddenly, the late-afternoon hysteria — not to mention the pissed off reactions — on the part of city and state officials makes a hell of a lot more sense.

While the city's safety people are scattered all over the city looking for Lite Brites, they had two simulated pipe bombs in two different locations in apparently unconnected incidents.

What's interesting is that there have been some commenters over on [livejournal.com profile] b0st0n claiming a connection to the Boston Police Department stating that there were legitimate bomb scares in the city yesterday, legitimate scares that got buried underneath the load of crap about the Lite Brites. These people have been pretty much either ignored or made fun of.

It took one Google minute to find this information out. Note that it's a very short article.

ETA: Information about the two legitimate bomb scares are starting to show up in round-ups about the Great Lite Brite Hunt of 2007. However, the information about the legitimate threats are buried almost at the end of the article.

Fox12 in Providence has a mention, but you'll have to read almost to the end.

NBC11 in San Francisco makes note of the pipe bomb that was found in the medical office basement, again buried in the middle of the story.

Just pointing out that there's more than one source for it besides some commenters on [livejournal.com profile] b0st0n and The Boston Herald.

ETA2: The BPDNews, which is kind of an electronic feed that anyone can check into, makes note of the 1:02 p.m. simulated pipe bomb that was found in a desk draw at the New England Medical Center.

Once you read that piece of information, read more. It turns out there was a flurry of bomb threat calls into the Boston Police Department all right around that time. Some pointing to Lite Brites, but one pointing to the simulated pipe bomb found on the Longfellow Bridge.

[identity profile] coyotegrrrl.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 09:26 pm (UTC)(link)
But still, the one thing I can't get over, that I can't see the Boston PD's side of - the ads were there for WEEKS, and all of a sudden, yesterday they were maybe bombs.

I can understand their anger at diverting resources. I can even understand not recognizing them as ads and thinking maybe they were a threat. Bombs could be made shiny with light brites, after all. But...WEEKS! they were there. That, to me, is the inexcusable part.

Well, that and the idiocy of rounding up the artists and trying to make them the scapegoats.

[identity profile] liz-marcs.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 09:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Honestly?

I think the presence of the two pipe bombs and two legitimate scares explains a whole hell of a lot. The BPD is doing their job (essentially). They know the Lite Brites really aren't a threat, but because of two real threats they've got to treat the Lite Brites as a legitimate threat.

Should the two artists have been arrested? No. But I can understand why they were arrested.

As for the Lite Brites, I think I saw one of these things myself a couple of weeks ago driving through the MIT campus. It looks like a left-over Christmas decoration, so I can understand how people missed it or dismissed it. Is it a problem? Maybe. Especially since they really weren't anything.

However, it should probably be noted that when something that looked like a real pipe bomb cropped up, the BPD was all over it right away, despite the fact the city was already in chaos.

[identity profile] jakeexperience.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
This story's lol-factor just got a significant reduction.

[identity profile] liz-marcs.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 09:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Fuck, yeah.

Like I said, the only reason why I even picked up on this was because there were some employees of the police department commenting on [livejournal.com profile] b0st0n that there were some legitimate bomb threats called into the BPD at 1 p.m., but no one wanted to listen.

I just thought I'd check to see if it was true, and low and behold...

Suddenly the whole pissed off attitude of city and state officials makes a hell of a lot more sense.

[identity profile] rufinia.livejournal.com 2007-02-02 04:36 am (UTC)(link)
(I was pointed here by a friend.)

Once someone called BPD and said "There's this thing under the I93 bridge, it's got wires, I don't know what it is." they pretty much have only one choice. Treat it like it's real, and hope to god that it ain't. Then after the news started reporting THAT, people started calling in from all over saying "hey, there's one of those things here, too!"

It's not inexcuseable. It's their job.

[identity profile] liz-marcs.livejournal.com 2007-02-02 04:44 am (UTC)(link)
Agreed. I don't blame the BPD one bit, even without the simulated pipe bombs they found. They were doing their jobs, and that meant they had to follow procedure for each and every single one of the Lite Brites they came across.

Where I was rolling my eyes was with what I thought was grandstanding and fear-mongering by the politicians after the real story about the Mooninites came to light. That's where, I think, the perception changes.

Once you know that there were two pipe bomb scares on top of what was going on with the Lite Brites, the grandstanding looks a lot like people who are legitimately pissed because those pipe bombs could've easily been real. Considering that a lot of their resources were scattered all over the city dealing with a marketing plot gone awry, it's no wonder they are out for blood. The reaction becomes completely understandable in that context.