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.”
"WOMAN CHARGED AFTER LOGAN SCAREWhat doublespeak: "...Simpson did not answer except to say that it was a piece of art..."
"A 19-year-old Hawaii woman was charged with possessing a hoax device today after she walked into Terminal C of Logan International Airport with what employees thought was a bomb strapped to her chest.
Suffolk County prosecutors recommended that STAR A. SIMPSON (D.O.B. 3/23/88), of Lahaina be held on $5,000 cash bail at her arraignment today in the East Boston Division of the Boston Municipal Court Department. District Court Judge Paul Mahoney set bail at $750 and ordered her to return to court on Oct. 29 for a pre-trial hearing.
Evidence suggests that Simpson approached the information counter at about 8:00 this morning and asked a Massport employee for information on an inbound flight from Oakland, California. At the time, Simpson was wearing a sweatshirt affixed with a circuit board, light-emitting diodes, and wires connected to an exposed nine-volt battery.
Simpson did not respond when the employee inquired about the device she was wearing. When the employee repeated her question, Simpson did not answer except to say that it was a piece of art and left the counter to walk around the baggage claim area, eventually leaving the building. Word of her activity and device quickly began circulating inside the terminal, causing several employees to leave the building in fear.
As she left Logan, Simpson disconnected a nine-volt battery that was powering the device. Shortly thereafter, responding troopers placed her under arrest.
Simpson was represented by Boston attorney Ross Schreiber."
“‘Enough is enough.
I mean, what did Boston do to deserve this plague of punks?
And of course, this latest, utterly preventable chaos at Logan International Airport is now being brushed off as a work of art? Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Just last winter we got the same preposterous alibi from those two spoiled losers who brought the city to a standstill with their Cartoon Network stunt, and please, no second-guessing the cops on whether they overreacted.
All that nice young foreign gentleman with the Rasta haircut and the aversion to bathing had to do was tell the police who responded to the first 911 call in Sullivan Square that it was a joke.
But no, the performance artist wanted some videotape. Of his art.
And now we meet the latest college kid to screw up the lives of people who have to work for a living. Young Star Simpson, 19, MIT sophomore, of Hawaii. Bringing a fake bomb into Logan Airport gives new meaning to the term sophomoric behavior.
Star is lucky, damn lucky, she was not shot dead right there in Terminal C, and kudos to the State Police for pointing out that obvious fact for once rather than beating around the bush.
Explained State Police Major Scott Pare: ‘She said that it was a piece of art and she wanted to stand out on career day.’
For which she could get a new career: jailbird.
I guarantee you Star was never spanked as a kid. So now she needs a timeout. How does three-to-five sound?
The problem is, those two loser punks from the Cartoon Network - they didn’t do any time, even after they came out of the courthouse and gave everybody the proverbial finger.
How much do you want to bet Star’s got a trust fund, and that her parents are aging hippie types?
Before today, the brilliant students of MIT were most recently in the news for trying to set fire to the Charles River. In their off hours, these brainiacs drink themselves to death at fraternity parties across the river in Boston.
These MIT students are not to be confused with the BU scholars, who riot in Kenmore Square and set fire to cars after athletic events.
And down the road from BU is Boston College, where wacky college kids can be found handcuffed to light poles outside Mary Ann’s. And back across the river is Harvard, home of America’s future leaders, who amuse themselves after Saturday football games by peeing in public and then calling Momsy and Pater when some cops have the temerity to lug them.
At some point, somebody has got to make an example of one of these college kids. Funny is putting a Volkswagen bug at the top of the stairs of the Widener Library in Harvard Yard, or wherever the hell they do it.
What’s not funny is arriving at Northeastern and two days later yelling out the window to a bunch of cops that if they want to buy pot, they’ve come to the right place. Actually, that was kind of humorous. As one poster on the Herald’s Web site put it, ‘UMass-Boston, here we come!’
The problem is, the college administrators and the local laws are loath to crack down on the little darlings. They blame it on hijinks and high testosterone, but I think it has more to do with high tuitions.
Even at the second- and third-rate private colleges, full-boat tuitions are up over $40,000. And the nouveau-riche white trash who spawn most of these young dolts just aren’t reproducing at the same levels as in a pre-birth control era. That’s why schools like Suffolk are recruiting Eurotrash teenagers to destabilize Beacon Hill.
In high school, Star surely learned a lot about self-esteem, but here are a couple of old sayings I’ll bet she never heard. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. And the First Amendment does not give you the right to yell fire in a crowded theater.
Or don’t bring what looks like a bomb into Logan Airport, while carrying what appears to be plastic explosives in your hands.
Life is hard, kid, but it’s harder if you’re stupid. Those words as true today as they were when George V. Higgins wrote them. Are you listening, Star? Next time you get a bright idea, just chug-a-lug another beer and take one more hit on the bong. And leave the rest of us alone.
Not that Star’s incarceration will stop the lads and lasses from double-parking all weekend up and down Newbury Street and Comm. Ave, or from partying all night long in Allston and Brighton. Just think, it’s almost time for the Red Sox [team stats] playoffs. Last one to throw a brick at a police horse is a rotten egg!
I kno
(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