Drunken Prank Shuts Down New York Bridge, Dollar Falls

Washington Post ^ | 03/29/03 | Reuters

[SquirrelKing]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three men climbed on a New York bridge in a drunken prank on Friday, shutting the bridge, sparking an anti-terrorism response and sending the dollar down in morning trading, officials said.

Police said they arrested three men in their 30s, who were caught by a police officer in the morning rush-hour after they were spotted climbing the cables of the Williamsburg Bridge that links Manhattan and Brooklyn across the East River.

Anti-terrorism teams, including helicopters, radiation detection units and bomb squads -- on high alert since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and stepped up since the U.S.-led war on Iraq started last Thursday -- converged on the area.

But police said the incident was not terrorism-related and nothing suspicious was found. Police also searched all of the city's bridges and tunnels as a precaution, officials said.

New York Police Department Deputy Chief Bruce Smolka told reporters that the men "had been drinking all night" and looked "scruffy."

[SquirrelKing]

"New York Police Department Deputy Chief Bruce Smolka told reporters that the men "had been drinking all night" and looked "scruffy."

"Geez, that could be enybody, eh?"

[martin_fierro]

Man, that is one butt-ugly bridge.

[Fedupwithit]

Uhhh....does it bother anyone else that now PRANKS send the Dow and the dollar reeling?...can't they at least wait to devalue our currency for when something ACTUALLY does happen?

I mean sheesh, I can go to the trading floor, watch TV and trade stocks in a panic if that is all it takes nowadays..

[Dog Gone]

The Washington Post is the one who made the connection between the dollar and this prank.

That doesn't make it so.

[NewYorker]

Hope they're prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

[cubreporter]

I wonder...don't these people have lives? What do they do for a living? Do they use their brains at all? Pulling a prank like that is funny? Am I missing something? These people are useless. Too bad they can't channel their energy into something positive.

[azhenfud]

Drunken Prank Shuts Down New York Bridge, Dollar Falls

"The Washington Post is the one who made the connection between the dollar and this prank."

The headline reads as if the dollar pulled a drunk, stopped traffic by getting on the New York bridge, and fell off.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Uhhh....does it bother anyone else that now PRANKS send the Dow and the dollar reeling?...can't they at least wait to devalue our currency for when something ACTUALLY does happen?

"Mickey Mouse Passes Wind, Dollar Down."

[white trash redneck]

Truth is stranger than The Onion.

[NYCVirago]

It sounds like these guys were trying to re-enact a scene from Saturday Night Fever, only they went to the wrong bridge!