Has anyone figured out why the Boston cops deceived the public about the cartoon "devices"

[ConsAreLiars]

for so long?

Obviously, if they had just allowed a video of these so-called "possible bombs" to be broadcast with the first reports of "suspicious items" the general public could have alerted them to the fact that it was a cartoon character ad that had been seen around Boston for a couple weeks. I an guessing (I was at work and know nothing about it until the real facts were all pretty well known) that the image wasn't shown to the public until the scare was well established.

Instead, from what I gather there was an extended period of scare hype about wires and batteries and rumors of bombs all over the city. Was the fear-mongering deliberate, or just gross incompetence? Did they suppress the images of the "devices" and shut down the city because they were truly that ignorant, or did some "decider" decide to build himself up as a "security hotshot"? It certainly wasn't the first time that somebody called in about something that they though worrisome.

For some odd reason the cops here in Seattle are gathering up all of the cartoon ads "as evidence." Evidence of what, nobody seems to know, maybe advertising. A case might be made that advertising should be made a crime -- the social benefits would be significant -- but so far it isn't. Unless ClearChannel has made it illegal for anyone else to put up billboards. One that had been posted on an area where freeway repairs had been going on for a while, and had been thought to be a commentary on the traffic delays.

So why did Boston authorities decide to create a big scare, when none of the other locations handled the discovery of the cartoon ads in that way? Who gained?

[MADem]

1. Because they called TURNER, and asked, and TURNER didn't reply

And while all that was going on, they found a couple of PIPE BOMBS that were unrelated to this stunt. http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=180349

Turner didn't tell anyone till the LATE afternoon--and they told the FEDS, not the city. And as has been reported, the marketing group told that little punk (the immature adult, aged 28, who acted like a fifteen year old with his equally immature pal in front of the courthouse) to NOT TELL THE COPS that the things were fake. There's an email to that effect that Mister Dreadlocks who is so proud of his "perfect hair" (another marketing theme he pulled at the press conference) sent to his friends.

The Turner people WANTED the media to keep hyping this thing. They deliberately delayed any notification.

Mayor Menino went on tv later in the evening yesterday, and he said that they suspected that the devices were fake, but Turner was NOT replying to their requests for confirmation, and they did not want to "accuse" Turner of being responsible for the devices when they did not know for sure.

Ahhh, but wait, there's even more. Mister Dreadlocks is not an American citizen, he's from Belarus, and he has a green card. There's apparently something IN that email that could cause him to get deported. He's hired a criminal attorney, and issued a FORMAL apology. They read it on the news tonight--it was very sincere and humble.

So, to answer your rather loaded question, the cops did not "deceive" the public. The shit was hitting the fan all day, and no one was owning up to either placing the devices or admitting that they belonged to them. For all the cops knew, the first 20 could be fake, and the last 18 real--they had no way of knowing, because they couldn't confirm their origin.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Geez, now they want to deport the guy?

What a bunch of rotten, scapegoating bullies.

[MADem]

12. Scapgoating? Didn't you read what I wrote?

This guy actively participated in helping the situation to escalate. He took orders from his boss at Comedy Central CARTOON fucking NETWORK, and then sent an email to his pals saying "DON'T tell the cops!!!"

He had the power to stop this shit at noontime, or earlier. He chose to let Turner get free publicity instead. He let thousands of people sit in stopped trains, stopped traffic, have to spend four hours getting to work or home, just for his little "joke."

That isn't a scapegoat, that is an immature asshole, at a minimum. And it's a crime in Massachusetts, at worst.

All he had to do is call and tell the police not to worry, that it was an ad campaign, and he would have been fine.

[REP]

16. Did You? Adult Swim is On Cartoon Network (Turner), Not Comedy Central

[MADem]

19. Excuse the fuck out of me. Cartoon Network is owned by Time Warner

Here, read up on them: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Time_Warner_CEO_who_sought_to_1130.html

And here's your TURNER connection--they're subordinate to the GOP bastards:
http://www.timewarner.com/corp/businesses/detail/turner_broadcasting/index.html

Fight the power, dude... :rofl:

[americanstranger]

6. What about the call from the cops in Seattle?

Was that information relayed to the bomb squads?

My take - they over-reacted, then had to hype it as a threat or be laughed at (not that it stopped anyone from laughing at them anyway). And the media hysteria didn't help a bit.

So you're right in one respect. Somebody definitely hyped this whole thing, but it wasn't Cartoon Network, IMO.

- as

[ConsAreLiars]

11. Maybe I should warn the cops in Seattle that

although the first 500 have been just what they appeared to be, the next one might be "Eeek!" a BOMB! Or maybe that next bag of donuts! Run Away! Run Away!.

[MADem]

14. Don't bother. They've removed them by now. You're too late. NT

[uncle ray]

28. was a bomb squad dispatched to remove each one?

[MADem]

13. I honestly don't know. I do know they said they repeatedly called the

Turner, TW/CN people, and kept getting blown off. Menino was pissed, because the confirmation came down from the FEDS, not the Turner TW CN people, and it came down after they went on TV and, without confirmation from anyone, called it a hoax but did not blame TURNER because they still had no confirmation from Turner --and that was four thirty in the afternoon, or thereabouts.

And Cartoon Network didn't just HYPE this business, they played a key role in stretching it out so the MEDIA could keep hyping it. They share a huge chunk of the blame, because they told that kid to shut up.

Didn't you see the email story? This is why that kid now has a CRIMINAL attorney. He's in HUGE trouble.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=nation_world&id=4994552

(2/01/07 - BOSTON, MA) - One of the two men charged in connection with the advertising campaign that turned into a terror scare was asked to keep quiet as the stunt sent the city of Boston into chaos, according to two fellow artists who provided ABC News with an e-mail from the man supporting their claim..... friends and fellow artists Toshi Hoo and Travis Vautour said it's not Berdovsky and Stevens who should take the fall for this.

According to Hoo and Vautour, the New York-based guerilla marketing firm, Interference Inc., which was running the advertising campaign in Boston; New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Atlanta; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; Austin, Texas; San Francisco; and Philadelphia, asked Berdovsky to keep his involvement quiet as the event was playing out.

"We received an e-mail in the early afternoon from Peter that asked the community that he's a part of to keep any information we had on the down low and that was instructed to him by whoever his boss was in this advertising campaign gone wrong," Vautour said. "I don't know if it was for security reasons or it was to buy them some time or to buy Peter some time."

In an e-mail obtained by ABC News sent from Berdovsky to Hoo at 1:26 p.m. Wednesday, the artist writes, "My boss at the Cartoon Network's ad agency just called -- she is asking that I pretty please keep everything on the dl (down low; quiet)." The e-mail, supplied by Hoo, contains a large swath of blacked-out text that he claims contained personal information he'd rather not share....



It's this email that is causing problems. This kid had the power to END this shit, and he didn't do it. And the reason he didn't do it is because his BOSS at CN told him, apparently at 1:26 PM, not to.

And all I can say is, I've heard everything--Guerrilla Marketing Firm??? How oxymoronic....

People who think this is "cool" are tools of Time Warner, knowingly or unknowingly. I find it amazing that these suits at 'guerrilla marketing firms' can manipulate their 13-30 market so easily. It's kind of sad.

[Tesha]

30. Bingo.

> My take - they over-reacted, then had to hype it as a
> threat or be laughed at...

Bingo. Precisely.

Tesha

[ConsAreLiars]

10. Thanks for the info about,,ahem, SIMULATED pipe bombs, not

"PIPE BOMBS," but no thanks for your bigotry about citizenship status.

Here's the reaction to what looked like pipe bombs, from the link you provided:

"The simulated pipe bomb discovered on the Longfellow Bridge briefly suspended Red Line MBTA service between Kendall Square and Park Street at about 2 p.m., said spokesman Joe Pesaturo. Traffic on the bridge was limited to one lane in both directions during that same period, state police said.

Yet what looked like ads were treated altogether differently, with whole sections of the transportation system shut down for several hours, because "the first 20 could be fake, and the last 18 real." ??? It doesn't make any sense to me. The same argument could apply to any number of delusional "could be" fantasies. "There could be undiscovered real pipe bombs in every square inch of the city, etc." The ads, on the other hand, looked like ads and tested out to be ads, I assume, fairly quickly. If I call the cops and say I think there's bomb in a green dumpster, would any rational person, barring other motives, shut down a whole city until all green dumpsters were checked. I hope this was incompetence rather than gamesmanship by some opportunist, and they develop a more sane approach than crying "Wolf!" whenever somebody gets a bit paranoid about an ad or even a "non-citizen."

[MADem]

17. Look, there "Number One in the Hood" I have said they were fake in other posts

You clicked on the link, you figured it out. How nice that you can read, that's helpful. If I wanted to DECEIVE you, I wouldn't have offered the link.

And when the BPD got the notification that the pipe bomb was hanging off the bridge, they KNEW that it wasn't real--NOT. And when they found the one at the hospital, they knew that was fake too...NOT.

The point that I was making, and that you childishly ignored because you like the "fight the power" chimera, is that a LOT was going on that day.

And as for your green dumpster comment, you're being disingenuous. A passenger on the T saw one of those things, with tape and wires and goo and batteries STICKING OUT, as the train went by, and called the cops--they gave a specific location, they didn't "generalize" like you are doing in your example. Apparently they weren't stuck up too well, and when they started to peel off, they looked creepy. But hey, that gets in the way of your perception of the matter.

It doesn't "make any sense" to you, because you don't appreciate Boston's history vis a vis 911. We lost a shitload of people that day, as well as two planes that left out of Logan and landed IN two buildings in NYC. A bunch of property owners named Bin Laden left our city shortly thereafter.

But go ahead with your South Park snark, and keep defending that "counterculture" corporation that's loaded to the gills with GOP contributors. It's the cool thing to do, I guess, to not care about how others feel in your community. And it's way cooler to support a corporate giant that snuggles up in bed to BushCo.

Here, you like links, read up on your corporate hero outfit: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Time_Warner_CEO_who_sought_to_1130.html

They're rich as Bushes, and getting richer:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-timewarner1feb01,1,4317463.story?coll=la-headlines-business

[ConsAreLiars]

23. I'm not 'defending" the corporations who, according to your storyline,

successfully played your cops and politicos for fools. I'm suggesting only a small subset of the same theme, that your "leaders" acted like fools. Claiming they were easily frightened into acting like fools because of the prior acts of some criminal gang, well, that does have some credibility. Look at Congress, including far too many so-called "Democrats," and the IWR and Patriot Act and all the other ass-kissing for the PNAC cabal that has taken place over the past 5 years.

It wouldn't surprise or shock me in the least to learn that the subhumans who control the TimesWarner/Turner/CNN/AOL conglomerate acted as greed dictated. that is what corporations do. It is the only thing they do. the fault, as I see it, lies both with them to the extent they prolonged the event and with the fools that acted like idiots art the outset and then let themselves get further played into a prolonged PR stunt, if that is what happened.

It does not lie, however, as you suggested, with the bit players who get caught in the middle, even those who are not red-white-and-blue-blooded full citizens of our glorious and godly nation.

[MADem]

26. Does this look like a cartoon character to you? Attached to this bridge abutment in this fashion?

Gee, you'd think you'd be nicer to our fine Mayor, with your staunch support for these bit players, then. He's the one who calls the two schmucks who did the planting mere "gophers." His ire isn't directed at them--it's directed at TIME WARNER, that "guerrilla marketing firm" (please, give me a break--a FIRM to do that counterculture shit? How lame) and the Turner bastards who refused to confirm that the devices were theirs.

And here's CNN, fucking CNN, a TIME WARNER outfit, REPORTING on this shit, when all they had to do was walk down the hall and say "Say, are those things YOURS???"

I never suggested that it "lies" with the bit players, and what's with your snarky comment about full blooded citizens all about? Stop projecting, it's unbecoming.

That stupid idiot from Belarus is in trouble, and that is HIS fault, not mine--he acted like an asshole in court, acted like an asshole on the steps of the courthouse, and now, come to find out, he COULD HAVE ended it, but didn't. He actively decided to let the cops keep spinning their wheels. THAT is why he's got trouble--his own actions caused it. The fact that he has a green card puts his residency in real jeopardy, if they decide to charge him with a felony, which, per his email, he did commit. Forgive me for passing on FACTS. I'm not the one making the decision as to his fate.

He's gonna have some trouble, because he, all by himself, made a bad decision at 1:26 PM on the day of the event. He should have called the cops and ended this farce, instead, he emailed all his pals and told them to shut up. That was incredibly STUPID of him. And the weight of the law could come down hard on him, just for that. Not for putting the things up, that is just a misdemeanor--for letting the police keep spinning--that's felony country.

[JVS]

15. Don't fuck with Belarus

[Rockholm]

31. And Cartoon News Network (CNN) waited too!

They kept reporting on the "suspicious devices" all over Boston with live feeds and nobody from Turner told them? WTF?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. This way the mayor can play at being Guiliani.

Did you see that ridiculous press conference?

[WindRavenX]

3. what happened? NT

NT

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. Oh, I mean that big press conference thread from earlier.

You saw it.

They had a bunch of stiffs in suits come out to look macho. The guy holding the sign had rubber gloves on.

:rofl:

[WindRavenX]

8. oh yes, that one

As if they were dangerous :eyes:

[MADem]

18. Fingerprints????

wow, what a bunch of forensic whiz kids we have here.

If it were dangerous, they wouldn't be waving it in front of reporters.

Good grief.

Say, fight the POWER!!!! Support the counterculture corporation! http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Time_Warner_CEO_who_sought_to_1130.html

[MADem]

21. He's a Democrat for starters. And he doesn't tell his cops to shoot people waving wallets.

What do you have against Menino? You know nothing about the guy, but you spend a shitload of time attacking him.

[TahitiNut]

7. Because the Cheney/Bush speech writers already put it inot the next SOTU?

After all ... it was another 'suck cess (pool)' for our intrepid duo, right?

[mdmc]

22. this is another case of corporations putting profit in front of security

I love my cartoons, but I would be pissed to be stuck for hours so some marketing firm could pimp a cartoon.

[MADem]

24. And does THIS look like a cartoon character?

If you don't hang the thing right, it doesn't provide the desired effect, does it?

http://www.kirotv.com.nyud.net:8090/2007/0201/10892549_480X360.jpg

[mdmc]

25. I hear you. Really, I do

It is hard for a big cartoon fan such as myself to see your side of this story, but I do.

[MADem]

27. Here's the thing. I watch the show. I recognized the icon immediately.

But they didn't show it until late in the day. And there were the fake pipe bombs that were also found, unrelated to this event. And the Dreadlock guy's boss is telling him to shut up, and he's emailing his friends and telling THEM to shut up.

This could have been all done early, but it was dragged out for media AND marketing hype. I do hope Menino gets a HUGE payday for Democratic Boston from GOP Time-Warner. I hope it's massive, enough to fund a half dozen terror drills.

This is the town that unwittingly launched two planes from Logan that plowed into the WTC. There are way too many assholes from East Jesus and West Bumfuck who weren't touched by 911 the way this area was, who think it's cool to be snarky about terrorism, but they aren't targets like we are, thanks to BushCo policies--and we've got nuthin' on NYC. At any rate, it is still a sensitive subject, there are people all over who lost friends and family and neighbors. People would do well to look at these issues through the eyes of people who live a different reality....

Anyway, I get a kick out of ATHF. It's amusing, in its own way, and I like it better than the anime cartoons, but less than the Family Guy reruns. I just don't think this "viral/guerrilla" marketing campaign was smart, and it just smacks of GOP 'attitude'--try to get something on the cheap, don't pay for the ad space, and then get all South Park snarky and angry when people don't react like the whole thing is "cool."

[Sydnie]

9. Perhaps because major cities had their "Homeland Security" funds cut

in favor of petting zoos and large balls of twine museums in the "red states"? I mean, no one strapped a cartoon character on a farm animal in the midwest, so why do they need all that money when the largest cities in the NE and WEST with actual targets don't have two nickels to rub together now?

That's how I see it, anyway.

[JohnnyRingo]

20. The overreaction is unbelievable but plays into the hands of the movie company

...Funny how these things can turn into pop icons overnight with the right exposure.

[Tesha]

29. Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.

The cops had a mindset: Terra!!! Terra!!! Terra!!!

This prevented them from seeing reality or thinking clearly.

Tesha