From Boston.com:
An MIT student wearing a device on her chest that included lights and wires was arrested at gunpoint at Logan International Airport this morning after authorities thought the contraption was a bomb strapped to her body.
Star Simpson, 19, was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and approached an airport employee in Terminal C at 8 a.m. to inquire about an incoming flight from Oakland, according to Major Scott Pare of the State Police. She was holding a lump of what looked like putty in her hands. The employee asked about the plastic circuit board on her chest, and Simpson walked away without responding, Pare said.
Picture of the “bomb” after the jump.
Yep folks, that’s the bomb. I know I was more of a biologist, but that just looks like a small breadboad, some resistors and a few flashing lights. The kind of thing that will distract me at a moment’s notice.
I just have to ask, why are the guards at a major international airport so stupid? Their job is to protect people, and part of that job must entail knowing the difference between a bomb and a Radio Shack electronics kit, right? Furthermore, for years I went from SEA to ONT and back with a backpack filled with random wires, hard drives and other computer equipment. I’ve never had any issues.
Here’s the quote that gets me:
“Thankfully because she followed our instructions, she ended up in our cell instead of a morgue,” Pare said. “Again, this is a serious offense … I’m shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport.”
It would have been one thing to simply ask to look at it to see what it was. That’s perfectly reasonable. But to threaten her life, find out they made a mistake and then charge her with “having a ‘hoax’ device” as a sort of consolation prize is ridiculous.
Screw these idiots.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Pava // Sep 21, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I’m pretty skeptical on this one. It’s not like it was a working computer of some sort, which means she was just wearing it for the sake of wearing it. To the airport. In Boston.
I dunno. This sounds like someone who was trying to provoke security, and look, they got provoked.
2 Kurt // Sep 21, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Pava,
But their lack of discernment is a big boon for real terrorists. Now all they need do is get one person to wear a “hoax device” and draw all the attention away from the real terrorist getting through security.
These idiots have watched too much TeeVee. They think that the bad guys *always* put blinking lights and a countdown timer on a bomb. News flash: Terrorists don’t want to be discovered before the bomb goes off. They don’t want to be caught.
How long before some kid with a tricked-out game boy gets gunned down because the video game was “flashing lights”? Will they have been asking for it for daring to bring a video game on the absurd wait to get through the security theater at the airport?
3 mikel // Sep 21, 2007 at 6:33 pm
I’m looking for an update, because details keep changing, and it’s driving me nuts as to who is bothering to keep up, and who isn’t.
Though the attention whoring thing is an issue to be wary of, it appears she was only there to meet her boyfriend.
4 Kyle // Sep 21, 2007 at 9:03 pm
The article said they asked her what it was, and she walked away. *That* warrants the response. There’s no reason you couldn’t wire a bomb to a breadboard. Imagine how the article would have read if it were a bomb, and the guard has let her go because “It just kind of looked like she had an electronics kit strapped to her chest, and she was sort of playing with putty. I guess it was plastic explosives. Oops.”
5 Nicola // Sep 24, 2007 at 5:58 am
I have to agree with Kyle. If she had simply said “oh its just this little sign i made up that says ’star’ in led lights” she likely would not have been in the situation she got in. I think that had she told them what it was, rather than walked away, they still would have made a big deal out of nothing and confiscated it but at least it would be better than machine guns pointed at her. To those who don’t know how to interpret the looks of homemade electronics, that sign does look rather suspicious. Even if the guards had known what it was, others would not and the panic would still be there.
That being said, I believe being charged with having a hoax device was wrong and well overboard. I hope she has a good lawyer.
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