dispatches from TJICistan

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_re…

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.

Outside the terminal, Simpson was surrounded by police holding machine guns.

“She was immediately told to stop, to raise her hands, and not make any movement so we could observe all her movements to see if she was trying to trip any type of device,” Pare said at a press conference at Logan. “There was obviously a concern that had she not followed the protocol … we may have used deadly force.”

So the hipper-than-thou quarters of the Net are all up in arms (< cough > Boing Boing, Reddit, Live Journal…) but if the facts are as presented here (and that’s a real “if”, I’ll grant)…but if the facts are as presented, then I think the cops acted entirely reasonably.

I’ve been in a few places where security is taken seriously (B-52 crew ready bunker, 50 feet from the presumably-nuclear-armed buffs at a SAC base, etc.), and if one is paying any attention at all, one realizes that the folks who are supposed to be vigilant sometimes are.

A person having an exposed batter and wires…and holding a ball of clay…and not listening to verbal commands … at an airport?

Yeah, that gets a pistol pointed at the head and a “hands up, palms towards me”, in my book.

You should certainly be allowed to hang around in the student center that way, playing an assassin guild game or whatever, if you want.

Context matters.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 11:50 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.