Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge So...today in Boston.

The entire (explative) city is in lock-down due to some goof-ball(s):

The discovery of a series of suspicious objects on bridges, near a medical center, underneath an interstate, and in other crowded public places have set off a wave of bomb scares across Boston, snarling traffic and subways across the city.

None of the suspicious objects have been determined to be actual bombs. It was not immediately clear if the incidents were connected or part of some elaborate hoax.

A law enforcement source who has been briefed on the investigation said officials have found "commonality" among some, but not all, of the objects recovered by Boston, state and transit police throughout the day.

None of the objects examined by police actually contained explosives, the source said.

Governor Deval Patrick told the Associated Press: "It's a hoax -- and it's not funny."

Investigators have found that at least two of the packages that were similar -- both were composed of electronic circuit boards with LED lights attached. No one has called to claim responsibility for any of the items, the law enforcement source said.

The source said it appears the object scrutinized by State Police on the Longfellow Bridge may not be connected to the packages with electronic equipment. The item on the Longfellow Bridge may have been something left behind some time ago by a bridge maintenance crew.

The Coast Guard has closed the Charles River to all water traffic from the Museum of Science to the locks where the river flows into Boston Harbor because of the reports of bombs on several bridges, according to Chief Petty Officer Scott Carr.

This afternoon, investigators found a device on the BU Bridge today "similar to the Sullivan Square" package that forced the closure this morning of northbound Interstate 93, said Jennifer Mieth, spokeswoman for state fire marshal Stephen Coan, whose office oversees the State police Bomb Squad.

Like the item found at the Sullivan Square station, the BU package was attached to the underpinnings of the bridge.

"It was not an explosive device," she said of the suspicious item found on the BU Bridge.

State police bomb experts examined another suspicious item -- similar in construction to the items found at Sullivan Station and on the BU Bridge -- that was found attached to the Longfellow Bridge, which spans the Charles River from Boston to Cambridge.

Boston police are separately investigating suspicious items at Columbus and Stuart streets and near the New England Medical Center.

Storrow drive was closed at 2 p.m., according to State Police. Thirty minutes later police opened one eastbound lane to traffic.

According to Boston police, traffic from Charles Street is being blocked from entering Storrow Drive while several law enforcement agencies investigate more suspicious objects.

The MBTA suspended service on the Red Line for about 15 minutes between Park and Kendall stations. By 2:35 p.m., the T resumed service on the line.

WOWOWOW!! It doesn't take much to really F up Boston traffic, I can only imagine how many people missed work completely today because of that!!

On the radio today, I heard that in England somewhere they uncovered a plot to kidnap someone and behead them "Iraq style" and post it on the internet. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?! Are a bunch of people doing these hoaxes or what?

Light rain, and an Ortiz Walk-Off homer paralyzes traffic this town.

Yeah seriously! I've been stuck in it a few times myself... When I loved in worcester, I had to drive east in the morning, and west at night, and certain times of the year just the sun would stop traffic...

LMAO, I loved once in Worcester too but she broke up with me when I loved again in Cambridge.

what kind of love in camridge lol

Frank

She was a non-smoking, whale saving, green party political activist and PETA member that loved Tofu. She broke up with me when I asked if PETA stood for "People Eating Tasty Animals". Oh well, that was before I met Sue. Those were the good old days. When Bruins and Celtics were champs.

hahahhahaha that pretty sums this city up, i am lucky i got a gun permit

Frank

Saw somthing about this on the evening news.I dont know if I heard right or if I was having an audio hallucination. but i could swear they said it was a stunt to promote some late night adult cartoon......plaese sombady tell me I heard that wrong.

Turner Broadcasting at its finest....

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/10890113/detail.html

Oh, Lordy-lordy.

P.S. Batman never needed publicity. I'm sticking with the old time superheroes, thank you very much.

WOW thanks Paula at least now I know part of my brain is functioning properly.....I still cant believe it.
Sombody needs to go to jail for this.

From CNN:

Turner said the devices have been in place for two or three weeks in Boston; New York City; Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; Atlanta, Georgia; Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; San Francisco, California; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

However, only in Boston did the light boards create such a furor. In Seattle and several suburbs, the signs were removed without fuss, according to The Associated Press.

"We haven't had any calls to 911 regarding this," Seattle police spokesman Sean Whitcomb told AP on Wednesday.

Police in Philadelphia told AP that authorities had confiscated 56 of the devices. In New York, a street was shut down for 45 minutes after two of the devices were found on an overpass, the New York Post reported. In all, 41 of the devices were found in the city, according to the newspaper.

In Portland, police Sgt. Brian Schmautz said officers had no plans to remove any of the signs, so long as they weren't on municipal property. Nor had officers been dispatched in any kind of bomb scare related to the devices.

"At this point we wouldn't even begin an investigation, because there's no reason to believe a crime has occurred," Schmautz said.

In Boston, however, state, local and federal authorities on Wednesday shut down the Boston University and Longfellow bridges, and blocked maritime traffic from the Charles River into Boston Harbor. Bomb squads scrambled throughout the city and its suburbs, snarling traffic and mass transit in the city.

I think part of the question should be, why DIDN'T the other towns respond a LITTLE to the devices? I mean how did they know they weren't a bomb or something? Not saying Boston didn't over-react, but hey...

Nobby, yeah that's it.

i for one think it is good they reacted, yea maybe it was a bit much but if it was a bomb i would rather an overreaction to make sure everything is ok

Frank

Good on Boston for reacting the way they did....better safe than sorry....

Bad on the other cities for reacting the way they did....

"We're sorry J.Q.Public we thought it was some harmless cartoon thingy...we see that all the time"

Perhaps it's because Boston was on the 9/11 list or has had subsiquent threats since then, or perhaps they just over reacted but better safe than sorry....( and I have NO guess as to why NY reacted the way they did)

And some suit at Turner needs to spend some time grabing the soap with a cell mate named Bubba for this.

They interviewed the two idiots on TV. They may be too stupid to prosecute. The one with the hair is a real piece of work.

They interviewed the guys who put them there??
Not the brightest guys for sure...
but these two were working for a legitimate company doing what they thought was legitimate work...
again they are not "the brightest bulb in the string"...

but the guy who thought it up, thought it would be cool, thought " YURIKA!!! I'VE GOT IT!!! THiS is what we do!!!"...

then sold it to some suit who said " BRILLIANT " with out once thinking of the implications this might have in a post 9/11 environment!


they need Bubba to " help push in their stool"
if you know what I meen...and I think you do

those guys look like they do or should live in cambridge

Frank

sounds like a hoax perpetrated by incompetent police......at least they go to play with their toys

I dought that TBS will be worth much when this is over. After paying for the cost to the city of Boston, plus the feds. then lawsuits from everybody whos lost time from work.
Then the b******t lawsuits. "It stressed me out so bad I swallowed my gold fish so i'm suing for 10 million."

I see a possible bankruptcy comming.

I heard that they found some of those signs in San Francisco and the general feeling was "that's pretty cool". Chill Bean Town!
Oh yeah, People Eating Tasty Animals" that's pretty cool also!

From the pictures that were shown on the news this evening all of the "devices" seemed to be flat boards with LEDS on them. I wasn't there so I didn't see them in person, but they sure didn't look like bombs to me. I saw a picture of a bomb squad guy pulling one down from a bridge, he must have gotten a good look at it and known it was not dangerous. Just my opinion, but it looks like the authorities in Boston went off the deep end on this and now are looking for scapegoats to sacrifice rather than admit they panicked and threw the city of Boston into chaos through incompetence. While I’d like nothing more than to see Ted Turners bunch get fried, I think the Boston police and mayor got seriously wrapped around the axle here.

The beauty of C-4 is that it can easily be molded into any shape. You could even make it look like a board!

Yeah folks...The dead-give-away was that those babies looked like some anime induced cartoon charaters. OOOOOOOOH....REAL SCARY!

I'm tellin' ya! We americans are REALLY startin' to look and act like foolish and frightened little children WAY too much.

Ya know, I'm startin' to think Kevin(in Tucson) is RIGHT...specifically about the so-called "Greatest Generation"! I SERIOUSLY DOUBT that even they(and I'm even going to include that idiot Joe McCarthy in this) would have thought that those old Burma Shave billboards along the highways in the late '40s and '50s were a communist plot.(though I'm sure there were probably some....there's idiots in EVERY generation, ya know....we just seem to have a little more than our fair share nowdays)

GEEEZ!

Yeah! So 911 "changed everything", huh?! Like before that date, the idiot transportation rules of that time allowed other idiots to carry onboard commercial flights knives less than 3in in blade length(THAT was STUPID enough)...and then AFTER 911, "Sorry Madame, but we'll have to take those TWEEZERS o' your's before we allow you to board your flight!"

My GOD! When will this country start usin' it's friggin' BRAINS, so LATER it DOESN'T over-react to things???!!!

But of course...THIS would take an intelligent electorate(or at least, an educated one) that uses it collective BRAINS to think with, and NOT it's "Heart".

Okay...that's my rant for today, folks.

Dwight
(the comedy portion of our show will return shortly)

People F'in AMAZE me!!!

LEO's didn't over react they did their F'n job...and thank god for that!!!

If Anybody "overreacted" it was the media coverage...these guys KNEW EARLY on what these things were...one station in Boston came out and said they did..."But couldn't report that as it was unconfirmed" (but you could go on line and see the guys puttin the things up and link to the Turner site)..but it was unconfirmed...BULL SH!T!!!! THAT info doesn't keep you tuned in!!!!




Also what your NOT hearing in the press is shortly before the first device was reported DHS issued a threat warning for NY transit system...then a REAL pipebomb WAS found at a Boston Hospital...the DHS issued another threat warning...Then these calls started comming in...the point is they (the law enforcement officials ) HAVE to respond to these 'reports of suspisious items' regardless of whether or not they belive them to be a threat...AND given that this hit the national news EARLY in the MORNING...and it took Turner ALL DAY to contact the appropriate people...if you look at the "device" you'll see a large "screen" with the LED's mounted to it....a bunch of circuitry, and wire...then a big wad of something (probably the power scource) wraped in black duct tape...

So I guess if it's got a cartoon character on it it can't be harmful...huh??? What about all of those acid laced Mickey Mouse stickers the kids were gettin a few years ago!!

BULL SH!T...If JUST one of these things went unresponded to and (like the REAL PIPE BOMB) blew up ..... then it would be ...oh they ignored our reports....blah blah blah....

Davis Is RIGHT...NEXT TIME one of these reports comes in YOU GO!!!!!! then when the little "cartoon" flips you off just before it takes you hands off as it explodes...we'll all stand around and Monday morning quaterback and say how tragic it is!!!

It is SO easy to make armchair 'decisions', isn't it?

Quote:

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but the truth of the matter is that you can't tell what it is until it's disrupted

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Exactly

Quote:

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If anybody wants to volunteer to take the place of the bomb officers the next time we find a device attached to a bridge or a subway station, I'd be more than willing to take names

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Ok youse guys. I expect a queue to start right here <> Larry, Dwight; please step to the head of the line....




Thanks Paula!

AND ANOTHER THING!!!!!

I got two people I know Both in the armed forces one trained an a US ARMY bomb tech...one trained as a Ranger Specilizing in "counter terrorism" the whole point of making a IED Bomb IS TO MAKE IT LOOK HARMLESS!!!!!!!

Then you drop your guard!!!!

Cartoons'
Stuffed animals
woman
children

These things can't possibly be bombs or have bombs on them!!!

WAKE THE F UP !!!!

These people Pray you'll forgett and stay in your little "safe shinney happy place"

I grew up right outside of Boston and for those who do not realize it Boston is pretty small when compared to other US cities i.e. there is no place to run and the panic that would have been set off by one of those things going off would have been a nightmare.

I'm surprizingly not that upset over the stunt, but really fries my a** is the attidude of those two jerks afterward on their news conference, if anybody deserves a public beating it is those two a**holes.

My older son goes to school in downtown Boston and broke his foot the other night and had spend the night in the hospital after a two and 1/2 ride my wife and I had to turn around and go home as Boston was shutdown and we could not get to the hospital.

I would love to the have the opportunity to throw the first punch.

One p***** off dad.

P.S.

When did UNCOMFIRED reports stop the national media from reporting !!!

Look what they do to indiviuals and the administration on a daily basis. They could care less if they ruin your life and destory your family ratings are what matter.

Still P***ED off.

What really gets me is that someone couldn't at least fathom that somewhere, someone in some city (there were MANY that has these) might just maybe somehow think it was not just a cartoon? Over-reacted or not, it was STUPID on the part of TBS. Guys in Iraq are blowing up dead goats cause they could be IEDs. Why not a cartoon character? Silly as it seems, why not? THAT is reason enough to not do it in my opinion.

Also, anyone ever consider that while the entire law enforcement crew in Boston is busy, then a REAL bomb might go off somewhere? Hello??!!?? Shame on those guys for not at least considering their actions before doing it. What is obvious to one may not be to another. Also how many people REALLY watch that late night cartoon? PRobably not a 9-5 LEO...

Benny
I think you answered most of your own questions.....

"What is obvious to one may not be to another."

There were alot of bad choices and decisions made - thankfully there were no serious consequeces this time.