Rick Nelson

Have electronics, get gunned down
September 27, 2007

“Have gun—will travel” was the classic American western television series that told the story of Paladin, “a gentleman-turned-gunfighter who preferred to settle problems without violence, yet, when forced to fight, excelled,” as Wikipedia puts it. Today’s version of that show might be called “Have electronics—get gunned down,” based on the experiences of Star Simpson, a 19-year-old sophomore studying electrical engineering at MIT. As recounted in the Boston Globe last week, Simpson “walked into Logan International Airport…wearing a glowing device with wires coming out of it, prompting a bomb scare and her arrest at gunpoint.”

Simpson had attached to the back of her sweatshirt a prototyping board populated with LEDs and a 9-V battery. She described it, according to the Globe, as a piece of art she designed in an effort to attract the attention of potential employers during a week-long MIT career fair. Police described it as a hoax device, possession of which can lead to five years in prison.

"This is total disregard for the situation; this is an airport, post-9/11," said a grandstanding assistant district attorney who will remain nameless here in the hopes of preempting his 15 minutes of fame.

Now, I think it’s ill-advised to wear anything out of the ordinary at an airport. But it should be noted that she didn’t try to enter a secure area. She was awaiting a passenger on an arriving flight. And as one writer of a letter to the editor of the Globe pointed out, “Last year I passed through the San Jose airport. Within a few feet of the gate was a shop with a full array of printed circuit boards sold as billfolds, hairclips, wallets, notebooks, and clipboards. The shop there proudly displayed this technical art. Now if this sort of art is legal in the San Jose International Airport, what makes wearing it a crime in Boston?”

Indeed.

And the overreaction of the police is nothing short of outrageous. According to the Globe, police officers surrounded Simpson, aimed their machine guns at her, and ordered her to raise her hands. "Thankfully,” said one of the cops who apprehended her, “because she followed our instructions, she ended up in our cell instead of a morgue."

Can anyone doubt that, had she not heard, misunderstood, or hesitated, she would indeed have been shot?

Another letter-to-the-editor writer sums it up succinctly, offering this “advice to our brave first responders, before they shoot an innocent: People who are trying to explode a bomb don't advertise. They're trying to blend in, not garner attention with blinking lights.”

Exactly.

Posted by Rick Nelson on September 27, 2007 | Comments (1)