Here's a question:
Do we arrest these marketers because someone got the willies over some LEDs?
And how much commonsense does it take to realize that 'IEDs' would be less conspicuous, not blinkie cartoon characters making obscene gestures.
No, not if that's what really happened. But if after a few weeks of nobody getting particularly alarmed over these things in cities all over the country... they *themselves* called in the "suspicious device" reports all at once yesterday in order to raise a ruckus and get the free publicity?
Yes, then I'd think they should be arrested.
Think about it... for weeks these gizmos are sitting around in plain sight and apparently not getting much attention. Certainly not raising an alarm. But then one morning all of a sudden in the space of minutes there's six or more calls reporting a "suspicous device". All in different places in the city. What's the 911 operations center supposed to think? They've got to respond, and that response is just always going to be disruptive. You don't send out the bomb squad to an address without cordoning things off and closing streets.
The bomb squad doesn't have the luxury of hindsight until they've done their thing and found out what the gizmos are. I don't think officials did anything wrong here.
I do suspect that the calls were intended to create this reaction. It was a publicity stunt that wasn't getting any publicity. Now it is. Worked like a charm.