Posted on 02/01/2007 3:16:22 AM PST by billorites
A furious Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino vowed yesterday to throw the book at the masterminds behind a guerrilla marketing campaign gone amok that plunged the city into bomb-scare pandemonium and blew nearly $1 million in police overtime and other costs.
As city and state attorneys laid groundwork for criminal charges and lawsuits, cops seized 27-year-old Arlington multimedia artist Peter Berdovsky, who posted film on his Web site boasting that he and friends planted the battery-wired devices, and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown. Both were jailed overnight on charges of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct.
“This is outrageous activity to get publicity for a failing show,” said Menino, referring to the battery-operated light-up ads for the Cartoon Network’s “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” which sparked at least nine bomb scares in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville.
Menino promised to sue Turner Broadcasting Co., the Cartoon Network’s parent company, and criminally prosecute Berdovsky and anyone else responsible for the devices, and to petition the FCC to pull the network’s license.
Attorney General Martha Coakley was put in charge of the case and said the companies behind the promotion would be investigated. She said the felony charge of planting a hoax device could be broad enough to allow prosecution even if the stunt’s sponsors did not intend a panic.
“To do this kind of placement of devices the way it was, an individual had to know or should have that it was going to create the kind of panic it did,” Coakley said last night during a press conference.
Panic was the order of the day in Boston as city, state and federal investigators, police and bomb units raced through the city seeking 38 of the devices, in some cases destroying them as a precaution.
Shutdowns affected Storrow and Memorial drives, the Longfellow and Boston University bridges and Interstate 93, while extra Coast Guard patrols were seen at Rowes Wharf and at commuter ferries.
“I cannot state strongly enough the seriousness of this offense,” said Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley. “Commerce was disrupted, transportation routes were paralyzed, residents were stranded, relatives across the nation were in fear for their loved ones here in the city of Boston.”
In a statement, Turner Broadcasting said the light-emitting devices pose no danger and are part of a 10-city outdoor marketing campaign for the cartoon program. A Boston police spokesman said the company did not have permits to place the signs in the city.
“We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger,” the Turner statment said.
All told, the cost of extra police and activating the city’s anti-terror command center will cost Boston $800,000 to $1 million in damages, an angry Menino estimated.
Gov. Deval Patrick said he was not impressed by the apology from Turner Broadcasting.“I am deeply dismayed to learn that the devices are a part of a marketing campaign. This stunt has caused considerable disruption and anxiety in our community,” he said.
The bomb scare reports began about 8 a.m. when a MBTA worker reported a package with wires and tubes protruding from it that was stuck on a steel girder under Interstate 93 at Sullivan Square Station in Charlestown. The devices, featuring characters with raised middle fingers, had magnetic backs and were affixed to metal.
The reports spread throughout the day to the Boston University and Longfellow bridges, Downtown Crossing, the intersection of Stuart Street and Columbus Avenue, the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Memorial Drive in Cambridge, the McCarthy Overpass on the McGrath O’Brien Highway in Somerville and at a comic book store in Brighton.
The discovery of two more devices last night at the Massachusetts College of Art prompted another brief evacuation. By the end of the day, investigators had recovered 14 of the 38 devices believed to be placed in the Boston area and urged the public to report the whereabouts of others.
Just after three p.m., two bomb-sniffing dogs swept through City Hall, spending 16 minutes in Menino’s office. “It is outrageous, in a post 9/11 world, that a company would use this irresponsible marketing scheme,” Menino said.
Look for batteries... Look for wires... Look for these things on devices or packages left in public places or next to vital infrastructure... Any of this ringing a bell?
Also, from the footage I've seen, these signs are most visible -- and most effective -- seen at night. In the dark, the illuminated character is visible, and the "frightening" bits and pieces are not. The creator did not intend the devices' bomb-like nature (which I still contest) to be effective, but the appearance of an illuminated character in the dark.
And, note, that the problems happened during the day. These things were designed to be left out in the open 24/7. The designer is responsible for what they look like during the day and during the night.
Also, if I were designing a sign, I would have a photosensor to shut off the LEDs during the day to conserve the batteries. Was this unit even on during the day?
Over reacted? Gee, I wonder if the police ignored the calls from the concerned citizens who saw these things and then one of those "silly toys" actually turned out to be a bomb and blew up killing hundreds...would you be saying that the police should have investigated the calls coming in about them and be calling for investigations into why they did nothing?
The police did their job and they did it well. Thank GOD they take the threat of terrorism seriously even when it turns out to be an assanine publicity promotion dreamed up by some head-in-the-sand morons at TBS. Better safe than sorry.
They are, obviously, signs. But the features, such as exposed battery packs, exposed wiring and method of placement, play on the fact that people are looking for just such things in bombs. This was intentional.
Instead of parroting the official Boston police description, why don't you look at the video linked at post 36 of the construction and placement of the silly little lighted signs. They look nothing like bombs, and don't have any of the features you list. They are (I say are, since they seem to still be up in other cities where the police and general populace are not idiots) lightweight adhesive-back flat panels with a figure like a 1980's video-game character flipping the bird rendered in LED's.
This is blatant, inexcusable stupidity on the part of the authorities on the order of giving a kindergartener a three week suspension from school for having one charm on her charm bracelet shaped like a revolver, because the school has a zero-tolerance policy for weapons.
Morons (the over-reactors, I mean).
Perhaps they just sent a police car out to investigate and removed the signs without triggering a massive response. It would have been nice if Boston had done the same.
But it is certainly forseeable that a large city police force would react as Boston's did. In fact, that reaction (or over-reaction, if you are so inclined) greatly increased the value of the marketing campaign. Millions of people know about this stupid cartoon today who never heard of it yesterday.
When somebody greatly profits from a predictable result of their actions, it is reasonable to suspect that they took the action in order to cause the predictable response and profit greatly, don't you think?
And yet they did. So now what do we do?
Only in YOUR mind.
Everybody has been watching too many movies. That's why these devices were effective advertising. They were designed to play on the public's perception of "BOMB".
Did anybody go to jail over H.G. Well's "War of the Worlds" broadcast?
I will stipulate that Fox News is stupid, the City of Boston is stupid, the police are stupid and that millions of Bostonians are stupid.
These things are well known. They were well known to the people who placed these devices. The result was predictable. Shouldn't the people who placed the signs illegally be held responsible for the predictable consequences of their illegal actions?
If I intentionally use fireworks to stampede a rancher's herd off a cliff, is he going to be interested in my opinion that his cows were pretty stupid to go running off a cliff because of a few fireworks?
You know, every single automobile parked on the street looks like a car bomb. What if someone gets the idea that they ARE car bombs, and starts searching them all?
If that is true, that are, and deserve to be, toast.
I've been wondering. They had these devices up supposedly for 2-3 weeks in 10 cities, and nobody has written an article about them. Maybe the ad agency was getting scared that the marketing ploy had failed, and was looking for a way to jump-start it.
Sadly, it worked for them, everybody knows about the Aqua Teen Hunger Force now.
That's all FICTION, concocted in your own mind. If these people were such premeditated geniuses, why did their "secret scare" plan FAIL in the other 9 cities?
You keep writing things like that. HAVE YOU LOOKED AT THE VIDEO AND SEEN THEM FOR YOURSELF? (Sorry to shout, but you show evidence of not having done so, since you keep asserting that they looked like bombs.)
Comments on the video do suggest a hypothesis, though: someone complained about people putting up LED's and the handwriting of the police officer who took the call was bad, and the next person who got the message thought it said IED's.
Speaking as someone who has made more than a few electronic devices, I seriously doubt that the thought of bombs even entered the builder(s) mind. The placement of the signs was probably chosen for visibility rather than for some crazy notion that it would make these obviously non-bombs look like bombs. If I were having a yard sale (or something) I'd want to place my signs in heavily trafficked areas and the magnets are a great idea for making a somewhat heavy item easy to hang. Of course this requires ferrous metal next to heavily trafficked areas--hey, that sounds like bridges and overpasses to me.
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