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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]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
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 onb0st0n 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.
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
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
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.
no subject
My officemate and I spent part of yesterday afternoon watching the back-up of traffic as cars were detoured away from the Mass Ave Bridge, which is like, a few hundred yards from my office. We had no idea at that point what was actually going on (we did know it was a hoax and for a moment, were wondering if it wasn't a hack.)
I think it's ridiculous that Turner didn't just request the freakin' permits. On top of that, they were placed under bridges. Why would anyone think that's a good idea? Ugh. They couldn't have anticipated the faux pipe bomb scare occurring the same day the lite brites were discovered, but use some common sense.
Thankfully I didn't encounter any delays on the commute home. I would've been seriously pissed if I had.
no subject
The artists screwed up because they slapped some of those puppies on bridges. I vaguely remember seeing one on an MIT building when I was driving through campus three weeks ago (my memory was jogged when I saw a picture of the Lite Brite on the building), and I thought it was a Christmas decoration that hadn't been taken down yet.
Turner is responsible only insofar that they failed to properly oversee what the marketing firm was doing.
So, yeah, someone needs to pay. Since Turner is ultimately responsible, they'll be the ones paying. You can bet they'll go after the marketing firm to recoup costs.
Luckily, I work a few towns over, so it didn't really affect me. I felt bad for people who were trapped in the city for a few hours, though.
no subject
Excately. Unfamiliar things with wires under bridges make people jumpy. Some of the jumpy people will call the cops. Once that happens, there's not much that can stop what happens next, which is the bomb squad comes out.
no subject
I don't think that putting something on a bridge requires that the BPD lose its collective mind. As suspicious devices go, it looks about as suspicious as, well, a Lite Brite toy.
The BPD are supposed to be professionals. The pipe bombs, they look credible, they are scary, and yes, they should be paying a lot of attention to them. But it's the BPD that wasted a bunch of resources by failing to correctly analyze and prioritize, not the artists who put up the gizmos. The bleedin' things had been there for two weeks. In all that time, not one of Boston's Finest had never noticed and reported one?
Lots of bomb threats suggests no bombs, not lots of bombs. Bomb threats are incredibly effective at attracting police resources, but don't normally go boom. Blowing things up generally requires a bit more discretion. I wonder how many of the calls were from the guy that made the fake pipe bomb, if any. Again, these are the sorts of things that professionals are supposed to be able to evaluate. If every report of every suspicion of every citizen in the Boston Metro area were investigated by the police, they'd all die of exhaustion in a 72 hour period of time.
Meantime, it'd help if people would stop being so foolishly paranoid, too. I mean, what's the chance that a bomb is going to have blinky lights to attract attention, anyway? (Except in the movies.) Bombs want to be small, insignificant, and hidden so that people won't notice them while driving under bridges.