"Bomblike", "Hoax" Give me a Break!

When a light bright causes all this kind of **** the terrorists have won for sure.

I'm guessing that these things will now be collector's items. People probably grabbed any they saw after the news started breaking the other day. People up here have been posting ads on Craig's List looking to buy one.

I'll tell all my co-workers to look in their kid's bedroom.

Joe(But, but Dad, I found it)Nation

Years ago we used to swipe Keith Haring works off the walls of subway stations... I'll trade one of my Harings for a Mooninite.

Anybody ?

There's one on ebay current bid $1,000.

I devoutly hope than no terrorists decide to camouflage sabotage as a media publicity stunt.

The two kids that put them up were on the news, it was pretty funny. They answered every question by talking about their hair.

From Boston.com

The two young men charged with perpetrating a hoax that gripped the
city launched into a smirking, rambling performance - art skit yesterday
as reporters sought to question them about the terrorism scare. As their
chagrined lawyer looked on, Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown and Peter
Berdovsky, 27, announced they would respond only to questions about
human hair.

"What I'm wondering right now is whether or not the Beatles' hair
style . . . did it actually go into the '70s or was it all stuck in the '60s?"
Berdovsky asked quizzically.

Stevens and Berdovsky refused to address the havoc their work created,
the inconvenience to commuters, and the massive police deployment that
officials say cost more than $1 million.

"I feel like my hair is pretty perfect," said Berdovsky, flipping back his
dreadlocks in front of a phalanx of cameras.

The lawyers of these fun-loving boys are going to earn their fees.

The charges against these two are silly.

These two are acting as if the charges against them are silly.

I might have been too scared of the machine (which is desparately looking for a scapegoat for their silliness) to have made light of us. But, I hope I would have had the courage to laugh it off.

If anything happens to these two... it will be an injustice, and I will be very upset.

The officials may not have over-reacted in the precautions they took for Boston's safety. However, some officials seem to be over-reacting after the danger was over.

Had this occurred in Albaturkey, the light brites would have disappeared in a matter of hours and showed up on low-rider honda civics as wheel well decorations.

The officials have a challenging job and an important job. They need to take perceived threats seriously. No one faults the officials for having a response plan that can be brought into play quickly and impactfully.

But, part of this job is to quickly distinguish the real threats from the non-threats. There is obviously a hair trigger (not necessarily a bad thing) that started a process of response that once started, was very difficult to stop.

The police made a mistake here, mis-identifying these little cards with batteries and wires and little flashing lights as a threat that warranted a $500,000 response that shutdown I93 and inconvenienced many people.

That the police made this mistake is certainly forgiveable. We may even want the police to overreact to any threat as a way of ensuring a quick, decisive responce when a real terrorist attack occurs.

What upsets me is that the police can't just say-- "we do our best and we got this one wrong". If they did this I would have gone back to my daily life with complete respect and appreciation for the important work they do.

A little sense of humor, even from folks with the very important job of protecting us wouldn't be a bad thing.

The fact is that these guys had no intent of causing this panic. If they were planting things that were intended to look like bombs and cause terror I would be part of the lynch mob wanting to hang them and send them to Guantanamo. Perhaps what they did was stupid, but it wasn't a felony and honestly I don't think I would have predicted that little flashing lights would shut down Boston.

For the officials to learn from this... perhaps to figure out how to distinguish real threat from little blinking lights, would be a good thing.

For the officials to to educate the public... perhaps to tell all of us that we should be sensitive around bridges, etc. would be a good thing. Some will argue this is obvious, but I don't buy it-- and it is unclear what the limit is. Anyway engaging the public in a discussion about security seems like a better plan then jailing people.

Insisting that the heads of two bottom level employees roll, when there was no intent to cause anything more than to earn a few bucks hanging flashing lights is inexcusable.

there was a full page ad in friday's globe --

Unfortunately e-brown, I dont agree with your assessment about letting the "boys be". When you think of the actual locations where they stashed these lightemups, it seems obvious that there was thought that went into it, otherwise, why choose a bridge abuttment or a riser or a church. Fake Explosives , when viewed from a few feet away (not close up) can look like a thin deck of cards, and seasoned bomb squadders know thats enough C-4 to pack enough punch to cut a metal post or weaken a wall. They were concerned from the lightemups as to which of the blinky lights was actually a detonator. Believe me, the cops took this as seriously as it warranted , considering all the locations. (In Philly, they stuck them on a lot of poles at eye level and were swiped by the "in the know stoners". In Boston, they took location to another level entirely
I believe that, getting a forensic determination into motive and means can separate and determine whether these dipshits should be charged as felon "bomb hoaxers".
It appears to me that , with the makeup of the placards and the methods instructions given them by the ad agencies, this will determine whether it was an intended bomb hoax. I dont think we know enough. If I were a criminal investigator Id give one of the two geniuses a degree of immunity so long as he spills his full information. If it turns out that there was a concious deccision to act out like these were "minibombs" and by their strategic placement , would cause concern, then Id be down on them with warrants and informations just as severe as making phony bomb threats. No difference.

The two stoners appear totally unable to fathom the trouble they caused, they should not be let free without some reall dsicipline.

Farmerman, I think your disagreement with me is over intent. I agree with you completely that if the intent of these blinking lights was to create a bomb scare, then these two guys, and anyone else involved should be punished mercilessly.

I see no evidence that there was any intent. These flashing thingies were placed where they would be seen from passing cars, in places with metal so the magnets would work. Unfortunately these criteria happen to make bridges and overpasses good places to put them.

Your assessment of what seasoned bomb squadders look for is interesting, but irrelevent as far as the intent. I wouldn't know the things you mentioned, in fact if I wanted to cause a bomb scare, I wouldn't make flashing cartoon characters... I would instead make something like what you see on TV complete with countdown timer. The target of a hoax would be normal people (you wouldn't want it to take weeks to be discovered) not experts.

The idea the two people you call 'stoners' hatched a sophisticated plot targeted at the subtle detail of what bomb experts look for doesn't make sense to me. You are giving these guys you obviously don't respect an awful lot of credit.

But my mind can easily be changed on this. All you need to do is provide evidence that they intended to make a bomb scare (i.e. it wasn't a stupid mistake).

Intent is key. From everything I have seen or heard, these guys are innocent.

meanwhile, the boys in DC continue to f*ck the country for the next immeasurable amount of time and get away with it....

e-brown. Youre overthinking this. These guys were following directions from an ad agency. Placing the blinky thinks beneath an underpass, unless you have Suprevision, can look menacing. Why did they not choose structures, and instead road barriers or light poles, like they did in Philly, (at eye level). No I beleive that intent IS the very thing that distinguished this act from a stupid sign trick.

Bi-bear, irrelevant, one badass act doesnt negate or draw comparison to another . Lets not play these comparisons. Lets just keep on Bush for the criminal he is and separately consider these guys on their own merits.

Forensic examination of the charges they were given (the intent may have been from the ad agency and these guys should then be given a punishment for terminal stupidity)

An accident caused by wreckless driving is usually an unintended consequence. Which, is, by determination of how badly the rules were broken, is often considered a criminal act. I see no difference with shutting a city down ,unintentioned as you say it may be. We admittedly live in an age of heightened security so why do something really misguided just to play to our paranoia and then blame the city for reacting properly?? Everybody's an expert in fields that they have no experience . What if one of those little placards was a sheet of C and a LED detonator? we would be hailing the police bomb squads as heroes. The circumstances were a bit tweaked in another direction and somehow, the two nudniks are "folk heroes" and the police are being played as reactive Barney Fifes, when its actually the other way around.

Having done plenty of rewiring of "dud" charges, you always have to assume that everything you touch can be hot and can go off.(PETN det cords are like a thin soda straw and they can cut you in half with just a foot or so) They even make detonators that use digital counters with leds that show off the countdown from a preset time, so the cartoony guy isnt far from an led device.. These kinds are used in non military industrial applications but, many of the sources of explosives used by criminals come from breaking into quarry magazines and detonator storage magazines. So the cops get yancey over anything that doesnt look right or even looks remotely like a detonator. AND, as far as Im concerned, these guys dont get paid nearly enough.

Bingo. Plus, we here all know what happened to Milena De Valle (See http://www.boston.com/news/traffic/bigdig/articles/2006/07/12/concrete_falls_and_a_couples_joy_is_destroyed/ ) so most Bostonians are painfully aware of what can happen to concrete structures that are compromised. Something that even looked like it could do that would have been immediately suspect.

Oh, as for the whole light brite thing, that doesn't hold water as these were found during the day when the lights could not be seen. And, who the heck markets under an overpass anyway? Is that to reach the hip homeless person in the know?