Reading Is Fundamental.
Waitaminnit, are you a member of that crackerjack bomb squad?
Yes. That’s all I’m saying. Thank you.
tdn: it’s not a unique situation. Cops are pretty dumb all over our great land. This was just Boston’s day to shine.
Again, a pipe bomb is one thing. A circuit board with LEDs? Holy crap Honey head to the root cellar with the scatter-gun, there’s a bomb in the sign at the Wells Fargo!
CO, CA, they’re pretty close to the same. In fact, I think – following the logic of this thread – we can decree that they are the same.
Following the logic of the Boston police, maybe.
His buddies at the Academy must be so proud. He can work the Internets.
So are you another one of those guys telling me that you know better than the Boston bomb squad about something they saw, and you didn’t?
Well, yeah, but how are they supposed to know which is which when the calls start pouring in?
No, I’m one of those guys who expects that his local constable will distinguish a bomb from a road sign.
Or to put it another way, “Yes.”
Oh, so you’re behind the traditional “White Bronco” reaction? How 'bout assessing the situation and responding appropriately?
Here is my big problem, it was the reaction afterwards. The immediate anger and finger pointing at something that was not intended in any way to cause the kind of disturbance they did. Most of us would chalk it up to maybe a bit of carelessness and stupidity, but nothing malicious or horrible. Yet the mayor and theattorney general have all come out and acted like Satan’s minions themselves have descended upon the city.
The absolutely correct response would have been, “In our inital estimation, these devices were suspicious, so we took the necessary precautions, which required some inconvenience. We are discussing the situation with Time Warner, to whom we have expressed our concern and they have expressed there regret. We accept, and they agree, this was a poorly concieved marketing ploy with no malicious intent that resuted in this unfortunate incident. As for remuneration for the city’s cost, tha is left to be determined. I am not prepared to say we over-reacted or acted completely appropriately at this time, we handled the situation as we thought best at the time, but as is alwyas the case we will be doing an internal investigation to see if we can handle this situation better in the future.”
Instead we got “SHE’S A WITCH!! BURN HER!!!”
Once the first supposed pipe bomb was found they likley* had to start treating all reports of suspicious devices as a report of another pipe bomb until they investigated. Assuming the reports were of “suspicious devices”, not things that looked like they came off a Lite Brite.
*I’d be surprised if their SOP says otherwise.
I think the high point for me was someone with the Boston PD saying that, if these were bombs, they could have done major damage.
Maybe that was a reasonable thing to say in context, but they weren’t bombs, so it sounds fucking goofy. If the Queen had balls, she’d be the King, and if my office was a rocket I’d have lunch on the moon. Who cares what these things could have done if they were something they are not?
OK look, I don’t want to fight with you, but I have come in contact with a lot of 9-1-1 operator protocol. Granted, it’s not Boston, but it is a good sampling of what the operators do and say upon the report of a bomb. Beyond the particulars, the first and most important thing they ask is “can you describe the object?” If the caller can’t, it’s probably not a bomb. 
El Cid, we appear to be coming in from different angles. You from 9-1-1 procedures, me from police procedures. I don’t know about Boston but one of the first things taught in DC is that offciers need to treat every report with the respect it deserves, even if there had already been several false alarms. It’s on the MPD (DC’s police force) entrance exam.
Yeah, but where other than a 9-1-1 call do most reports originate? It’s a GIGO FUBAR of the first order.
In fact it’s such an amazing fuckup, I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire Boston PD were on Hillary’s payroll.
Depends on if those doing the reporting call the emergency number or a non-emergency number.
How should I know?
In the FARK thread I linked early there is almost at the end a photo of the BPD command center with this comment:
As a citizen of near-Boston who was stuck on the Mooninite traffic jam on Storrow Drive on Wednesday afternoon, I say the swat team and all their cohorts were pretty stupid.