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MIT Student Arrested For Wearing 'Tech Art' Shirt At Airport
SuperBanana writes "According to a report by the Boston Globe, MIT Student Star Simpson was nearly shot by Logan Airport police who thought she was armed with a bomb. She approached an airline employee wearing a prototyping board with electronic components, crudely attached to the front of her sweatshirt and holding 'putty' in her hand. She asked about an incoming flight, and did not respond when asked about the device. Armed police responded. 'Simpson was charged with possessing a hoax device and was arraigned today East Boston Municipal Court. She was held on $750 cash bail and ordered to return to court Oct. 29. "Thankfully because she followed our instructions, she ended up in our cell instead of a morgue," Pare said. "Again, this is a serious offense ... I'm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport."'"
But it was art. What's next, are the gonna arrest Chem majors for wearing shirts with their names spelled in C4 and glitter.
What's the world coming to!
Have you ever seen a bomb strapped to somebody's chest? It looks an awful lot like circuit board(s), batter(y|ies), and wires crudely fashioned. Oh, and a baggy hoodie sweatshirt to top it all off? How much C4 could a skinny person conceal?
The police reacted quite properly to somebody wearing an improvisational electronic device in a high risk public setting. She acted poorly by not explaining that she's an electronics geek who has poor taste in attire.
She's also quite lucky she got an officer who wasn't trigger happy. He asked questions first and she's still alive. If this had happened in New York, and/or happened closer to the end of 2001 she'd be on a slab right now undergoing autopsy, not a nonsensical martyr.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
Is this the United States that I grew up in, is the penalty for being a college student doing dumb things summary execution?
Isn't is the job of the police to collect evidence AFTER a crime is committed, not to kill people they think may commit a crime?
Boston over reacted with the Aqua Teen business, and wasted untold resources, then a few weeks later these same foolish officials shut down a street because a city of Boston traffic counter was attached to a lamp post.
Are the police to be excused for this scare tactic and grossly excessive use of force?
I so no, and I say it is about time to rein in stupidity.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
People should be smart enough to know not to go wandering around with that kinda stuff like that. She caused an incident that could have been avoided by leaving that crap at home. Anyone with half a brain should know that walking around with bombish looking stuff in an airport is gonna cause problems.
"When you can't run anymore, you crawl... and when you can't do that, you find someone to carry you." - Malcolm Reynolds
Eat a dick you unreasonable twat stain.
She was wearing something that reasonably regular people could mistake for something threatening. It's stupid to do this in a place like an airport.
You want to push the envelope of what's OK in society, fine. But if you get a bullet in the head for being a dip shit, don't ask most people to care or martyr you.
So what you're saying is it's OK for me to run around an airport with squirt guns that appear pretty real, especially for someone who hasn't even seen a gun and is a little distance away?
It's only a squirt gun. I can't bring squirt guns into an airport?! Fuck the man, it's my RIGHT!!
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
If its strapped to your chest and has some putty on it (which looks like C4), then yes
Since it didn't have some putty on it, then no.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
You can't crash an airport into a skyscraper, either.
(She made no attempt to board a plane wearing the device)
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
Ha, the disappeared... well, that's what happens when armed forces get the power. And the US is slowly giving more and more power to the armed forces. Keep doing that, you'll soon start having people disappearing. Oh wait, didn't the US government kill Malcolm X, for example? And a lot of other people they didn't like? Oh wait! -- Wasn't the US government behind the coups all over latin america (Pinochet being the greatest example)? Yeah, whatever. At least I won't die of a disease I can't afford to pay.
Considering that it had lights, a circuit board and some putty...the putty in her hand and not attached to anything else...
:P
When government is malfunctioning, it is our duty to point that out, not to just 'go along' with the malfunction. Yeah she might have guessed that this shirt would cause a problem, but so what? Do you advocate that black people stay out of white suburbs because the cops there tend to harass minorities? It might be the safe route for the minority, but it isn't right for our society. You'd probably tell Rosa Parks to move
You know who else made an ass out of himself to prove a point? Jesus. Gandhi. That Chinese guy who was run over by a tank. Just about anybody who committed 'civil disobedience' in the fight for civil rights in this country.
Sure, she could have made better choices for herself, but I think she made a better choice for all of us. Selfless actually.
Blar.
> This dumb-ass girl took a shirt with a bomb-looking device attached to it to a place where you are not allowed to say the word "Bomb"
Umm.. did you look at the picture of it? That doesn't look like a bomb. It's a bread board with some wires in it. You know what looks more like a bomb? A cell phone. Fortnately they didn't arrest everyone who had one of those!
sigs are a waste of space