Man in Boston Scare Videotaped Police

Washington Times ^ | 2-6-07 | DAVID WEBER

[JZelle]

BOSTON (AP) -- One of the men criminally charged after placing blinking cartoon advertisements around the city videotaped a police bomb squad removing one of the electronic devices, but did not tell the officers the object was harmless.

Surveillance cameras caught 27-year-old Peter Berdovsky videotaping officers removing what they thought was a possible bomb.

[UpAllNight]

--He is going to be SO embarrassed when he grows up. And as far as the advertising goes, well, I thought the Cartoon channel was for kids; certainly its advertisors are aiming at kids.--

Looking after about a five year old. He was bored with the cartoons but came alive for the commercials!

[California74]

Is your name Graem Bauer?

LOL!

[montag813]

Why am I not outraged? This whole matter is just so stupid. The devices were there for weeks. We cannot even laugh as a nation anymore thanks to those diaperhead bastards.

[brazzaville]

Good evening.

No matter how many people know the show's name, I wonder how many potential viewers were so put off by the Rasta Russian's smug arrogance that they will never watch the show.

Does anyone know how much advertising adds to the cost of products we buy?

What was it Shakespeare said? First we'll kill all the advertising executives? Something like that.

Michael Frazier

[3niner]

Maybe the BPD needs to hire some EE interns from MIT or Harvard, to help out the bomb squad. There are probably thousands of kids, at those two Boston schools alone, who could have looked at the devices, and told them there was no bomb.

[DBrow]

Lots of people saw these devices over the three week period they were up. Some people took them home. There are Livejournal posts to that effect.

Ever been to a stadium where they have those wraparound displays that show pictures and text? Lots of people recognize LED displays. Cities are full of neon signs, LED signs, plain old light-up signs and so forth.

For three weeks, lots of folks saw these for what they were and nobody ran away screaming. (Menino probably thinks these were not "reasonable people")

I find it hard to imagine that the cops did not see these objects- they were not hidden and were as bright as traffic lights and were at least a foot square and were placed where pedestrians would see them. No cop saw one?

http://www.campdoha.org/soldiers/ieds.htm

has a briefing on how to spot IEDs- none look like Lite-Brite signs, but they do mention black trash bags and even soda cans as being a true threat. The brief does say that anything can be a bomb, but the examples given are of actual devices.

So Boston PD Bomb Squad probably had a similar brief, possibly a better one. In a city filled with discarded soda cans, black trash bags, and parked cars, after three weeks of deployment, they eventually had bright signs pointed out to them by a non-police person.

They did what they were trained to do when they get a suspicious device call, and some of what they found were NOT these signs- the thing in the subway was not a sign, and possibly the thing on Longfellow Bridge was a fake pipe bomb but news accounts are hazy. They had just responded to a hoax pipe bomb in a hospital.

So they did a pretty good job, but when they came across the second LED sign, they should not have gone berzerk.

[slapshot]

Also called a "tune up"

[Syncro]

You're right, the cops don't want to be told the truth about certain situations. Especially if it shows them they are wrong.

If you try to tell them, YOU get in trouble.

I have personally experienced this also.

In one case they had "arrested" a man for some very serious charges, and were holding him (in handcuffs) to sort things out.
The arrested man's Father told the officer that his son wasn't even in the vicinity at the time of the offense, and told them to release him.
The officer just blew the Dad off. And held his son for about two hours before letting him go. Later when two young men accosted the son, the same officer threatened to arrest the guy being accosted. He was mad because the bogus charges from before were shown to be wrong.

Cops must be watching Cops (on TV) and emulating them. Oh, BTW the arrestees in this case had shirts on. You would think that would have been a clue....:>).And neither one of the arrestees were guilty of the charges.

[ricardobaltazar]

No matter how many people know the show's name, I wonder how many potential viewers were so put off by the Rasta Russian's smug arrogance that they will never watch the show.

Not very many I don't think. Pretty much all the mainstream forums I frequent think that Boston completely overreacted to the situation. If even much of FR feels the same way then I doubt that their viewership is going to suffer at all.

[massgopguy]

In their first interview with the BPD they said that they were not aware their ad campaign had caused any concern.

[Mr. Lucky]

Elucidate, por favor.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

I can't know what he was thinking and I don't believe you can either.

Oh, come now. Based on Vanilla Rasta's background, his performance at the news conference in which he'd only discuss "haircuts of the 1970s," and now this, I think it's very reasonable to assume he knew exactly what he was doing. Also, given that the whole idea of a guerilla marketing campaign is to promote a product by causing flap by non-traditional (and cheap) means, isn't it obvious Vanilla Rasta intended to create a stir? Perhaps not this flavor of stir, but a stir nonetheless. VR learned the lesson of unintended consequences the hard way, but I don't feel sorry for him in the least bit. He hasn't shown one ounce of contrition; not a drop.

[TigersEye]

Do they blow up every box van double parked? Last I checked those look a lot more like terrorist bombs than this lite brite toy.

One FReeper suggested that Sponge Bob toys could be used to disguise bombs. Kids better keep their toys out of sight. Or maybe get far far away from them. At least in Boston. ~8^O

[Tijeras_Slim]

Elucidate, por favor.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

[ricardobaltazar]

One FReeper suggested that Sponge Bob toys could be used to disguise bombs. Kids better keep their toys out of sight. Or maybe get far far away from them. At least in Boston.

Was that guy that was pretty much having one big Vietnam flashback in the original thread?

[Mr. Lucky]

Thank you.

I think

[TigersEye]

LOL I don't recall anything like that.

[TigersEye]

He hasn't shown one ounce of contrition; not a drop.

In front of the media inquisitors? Good for him. He responded to the treasonous MSM leeches which is far more than they deserve.

[Doctor Raoul]

I had something similar in NYC. Some LT kept yapping while I was talking to an Inspector and the Inspector was talking to me. You'd think she'd catch on, but she didn't.

Didn't get to the point that I felt threatened. Had a only one or two get obnoxious in the 8 years I've been doing demonstrations. Was able to handle it. Kristinn spoke to the other officers later and their concensus was that he got turned down the night before.

[Doctor Raoul]

Have you ever walked up to the bomb squad to tell them what they are disposing of is not a bomb?

Yeah. What are you afraid of? Can't handle the situation?

People leave their backpacks, lunch packs, etc all the time in front of the White House. If I forgot mine and came back to retrieve it and found the bomb squad there with the dogs, robot and other stuff, I'd sure as hell let them know it's mine.

The rest of your post isn't worth even repeating as a question much less answering.