Subscribe"She's extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used," Pare told The Associated Press. "And she's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."Holy fuck.
"British woman is being held in a US prison after she joked with an airport policeman that she was carrying a bomb".How about Devon, England?
"Airport bomb joke woman arrested."Manilla, Phillipines?
"Man Arrested At Philippine Airport After Making Bomb Joke"
"Simpson walked up to an information desk manned by a Massport official and asked about a male passenger on an incoming Continental flight from Oakland, authorities said. That passenger turned out to be Anderson.
When the Massport employee asked Simpson about the device, she walked away and the worker contacted state police. State police, explosive experts and canines swarmed the area, and found Simpson outside on an island on the lower roadway.
Simpson was immediately surrounded by police holding machine guns.
'She was immediately told to stop, to raise her hands, and not make any movement so we could observe all her movements to see if she was trying to trip any kind of device,' Pare said at a morning press conference at Logan."*
"She's extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used," Pare told The Associated Press. "And she's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."This is what scares the bejeezus out of me. The police are discarding some basic community-based policing in favor of a John McClane Die Harder attitude. Heaven forbid I space out and walk more than 10 feet away from my bag while Au Bon Pain on a layover.
"A woman from Instructables.com who knows Simpson tells Boing Boing that Simpson's friends at MIT 'say she wears the hoodie on a regular basis -- it's just unfortunate that she had it on while trying to pick a friend up at the airport. MIT students don't really do mornings, or worry about what they're wearing, so I can't imagine she'd even think about her clothes before heading out to pick up a friend at the airport before 8 a.m.'"*
"I put bomb in squirrel's briefcase and who gets blown up? Me!" -- Boris Badenov
"Approximately 8:00 a.m. this morning we had a female walk into lower Terminal C....a number of officers found her out in the lower roadway on the island. We had K-9; we had explosive ordinance division there within minutes [after receiving the call from the Massport employee at the Information Desk]. She followed instructions..."
“Simpson approached an information booth in Logan’s Terminal C wearing the light-up device, Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Wayne Margolis said during Simpson’s arraignment today. Margolis also said that Simpson had been wearing the art for at least a few days.So, it appears (according to Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Wayne Margolis himself) that Simpson did indeed answer the MassPort employee at the Information Desk and described it as a "piece of art."
She ‘said it was a piece of art,’ Margolis said, and ‘refused to answer any more questions.’ Jake Wark, spokesperson for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, said that Simpson only described the LED lights after she was ‘repeatedly questioned by the MassPort employee.’ Simpson then ‘roamed briefly around the terminal,’ Wark said. Margolis said this caused several Logan employees to flee the building. As Simpson left the building, she disconnected the battery powering the device, according to a press release provided by Wark.
Simpson had five to six ounces of Play-Doh in her hands, State Police Maj. Scott Pare said in a press conference this morning. The Play-Doh could have been mistaken for plastic explosives.
Simpson was confronted at a traffic island outside Terminal C by state troopers with MP5 submachine guns, and she was arrested at approximately 8 a.m., Pare said during the conference.
…MIT is cooperating with the state police in the investigation, according to a statement released by the MIT News Office this afternoon. ‘As reported to us by authorities, Ms. Simpson’s actions were reckless and understandably created alarm at the airport,’ the statement continues.
‘The statement was drafted in a consultation among colleagues who gathered to review the information we had on the incident,’ MIT Chancellor Phillip L. Clay PhD ’75 said in an e-mail to The Tech. ‘We prepared a statement after we discussed what our responsibilities are to the public regarding the incident.’
Clay said that MIT had not spoken with Simpson before issuing the statement.
Clay said that MIT considers Simpson’s actions to be ‘reckless,’ because taking the reported items to an airport could reasonably be foreseen to cause alarm. ‘We all have a responsibility not to cause alarm and to be mindful of security requirements.’
MIT Police Chief John DiFava likewise said that ‘reckless’ was ‘not a word that’s inappropriate.’ DiFava was the interim public safety director of Logan International Airport for two months immediately following Sept. 11, 2001.
The possibility of a suicide bomber ‘requires a significant and serious response,’ DiFava said. Machine guns are ‘standard equipment down at Logan,’ said DiFava, adding that machine guns are commonly seen at airports overseas. ‘There was a female party with a device wired on her body and a glob … a substance that looks like C-4, C-5, or Semtex [plastic explosives]. … To have guns drawn, I don’t have a problem with that.’
DiFava said that as he was not at the scene and did not want to second-guess the officers that were there. However, ‘we don’t know what the witness saw … what kind of a description she gave the police,’ DiFava said. ‘Eyewitnesses are notoriously inaccurate. … We don’t know the details.’
‘Still,’ DiFava continued, ‘of all places, an airport; of all airports, Logan. … Logan even confiscates water bottles.’ The two planes that struck the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 departed from Logan, and American Airlines Flight 63 was diverted to the airport on Dec. 21, 2001 after Richard Reid attempted to blow up the plane using explosives concealed in his shoe.”
(In all seriousness, though, I imagine she got exactly what she wanted...how do you wear a machine of unclear purpose on your chest through airport security without expecting to get pulled aside, at the least?)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:52 AM on September 21, 2007