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MIT Says Gunman Hoax Call Mentioned Swartz Case

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-the-way-to-protest dept.

An anonymous reader writes "MIT has posted a letter to campus newspaper The Tech providing a timeline of last weekend's 'gunman' hoax. On Saturday morning, Cambridge, MA police were contacted via Internet relay by a tipster who claimed that a someone wearing armor and carrying a 'really big gun' was in Building 7 at MIT (the Massachusetts Ave. entrance to the Infinite Corridor) and was heading towards the office of MIT President Rafael Reif. The call continued for 18 minutes, with the caller eventually claiming that the gunman was seeking to avenge the suicide of Aaron Swartz, who was being prosecuting for alleged illegal downloads of millions of journal articles using MIT's computer network. The caller also identified the gunman as an MIT staff member, who has since been questioned by police and cleared. MIT has been criticized for waiting 1.5 hours before sending a campus-wide alert after the call was received."

5 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Good grief... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    MIT has been criticized for waiting 1.5 hours before sending a campus-wide alert

    No, they are being criticized for not buying into the same paranoia that spawned the TSA, the same paranoia that has transformed police departments into paramilitary gangs, the same paranoia that is moving us as a society closer and closer to being a Police State - if we are not already there. They are being criticized for understanding that it was almost certainly a troll, and terrorizing and traumatizing their student and staff was not warranted based on the information they had.

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    1. Re:Good grief... by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I sort of agree with you, but to play devil's advocate... what if they were wrong?

    2. Re:Good grief... by BKX · · Score: 5, Interesting

      That was my reaction to a botched bomb-threat reaction when I was in eight grade. One of my friends called in the threat to the middle school from the middle school payphone at 7:45 AM. I heard the call, and he definitely said the bomb was in the middle school in a bathroom by the gym. At 8:30 AM, the high school (the two schools share a single campus) was evacuated into the middle school gym. At 9:00 AM, my friend was arrested. The evacuation was completely unnecessary, as they knew he called it by 8:00 anyway. He called his mom right afterward and said that she needed to pick him because a bomb threat had been called in. She called the school to find out if it was true, and they asked, "Wait, how did you know that again?" Anyway, in addition to the evacuation being unnecessary, it was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard. Why would you evacuate an unaffected school's population into the area containing the bomb, and why would you wait an hour and a half?

    3. Re:Good grief... by BKX · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You missed what I was saying happened. The middle school had the "bomb". The High School was evacuated. The High School's students were put into the middle school, where the "bomb" was. That's the nonsense.

  2. Shit's haunted by Z34107 · · Score: 5, Funny

    A gunman, seeking vengeance for Aaron Swartz, unseen by anyone other than the caller, and magically disappears into thin air when police arrive?

    That's not a hoax. Aaron confirmed for haunting MIT.

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