Suspicious package

by SadButMadLad on May 12, 2011

Police had to call in the bomb squad yesterday morning.

A potential bomb had been spotted and so it was their duty to ensure that the public was kept safe so they closed surrounding streets and performed some controlled explosions before announcing that the package was safe.

It sounds like the police did a good job. Until I checked some of the details of the story

First off I checked out the location via Google Maps. A residential street. So not a place where a terrorist is likely to place a bomb. Bombs do occur in residential locations though so you can’t say straight away that it was safe. People do hold grudges and it has been known for bombs to be planted under cars etc. Especially by home grown terrorists like the Animal Liberation Front (or was it the Front for Animal Liberation?). So police should have closed the roads and ensure people are safe in case the bomb had gone off.

But then some other details of the story leak out.

Yes this detail was published after the fact but it gave a clue to another aspect of the story and the police will most likely have known about this point whilst attending to the package. The detail being that the package was found to be a prop for a school play.

Some parent had made it for the local school on Whiston Road and afterward had thrown it out with the rubbish. That’s the clue – rubbish. This was the waste collection day for the road and the call about the suspicious package had come from a waste disposal engineer or in other words a garbage man.

You can forgive the garbage man for calling the police because the public have been fed propaganda that instills into them the fear that Al-Qaeda is just around the next corner. An example being on the Tube and in some airports of a picture of a lock-up garage full of containers of something or other and a car with the words to the effect that terrorists need to store their bomb making chemicals somewhere so be on your guard – it could be your neighbour. IF YOU SUSPECT IT, REPORT IT!

But with a bit of intelligence the rubbish man (and he is rubbish for not having much common sense) should have easily noticed that it was a fake bomb. But he has been trained to always report up any problem. That’s why people get fined for having bins that are 1″ too full or for leaving a bag beside the wheelie bin. The waste disposal officer is told to report such things and never ever take responsibility and to think for themselves. If they did they probably would allow the odd household to flout the rules but would report a fragrant breaches or repeat offenders.

The fact that the police have not given much detail about the “bomb” leads the reasonable person to assume that it was a round black object with a piece of string dangling out of it. Or if the parent was being imaginative an old alarm clock with some wires and some yellow tubes attached to it. But generally you have thought that for a play the bomb would be made Hollywood style.

So in conclusion it seems the police didn’t use much intelligence either in using the information they knew of at the start of the operation. They too have been instilled this fear of taking the initiative. This is what leads to situations where police don’t jump into a stream to save someone because they don’t have the right kit or the training.

This is what nannying leads to.

{ 16 comments }

1 gladiolys May 12, 2011 at 12:06

Maybe the bin man was tired of his round and could get off early with no rubbish to collect on that street.

Maybe they wanted to show up the stupidity of the entire terror alert situation.

And maybe people are so bored they’ll do anything to add variation to their day (including the police), no matter what the excuse.

2 Akvavitix May 12, 2011 at 12:34: Knowing the diligence of the average public sector worker he will have skipped back to the depot and put in for 2 months off work for post traumatic stress disorder.

Bring on the cuts!!!

3 Time Traveller May 12, 2011 at 12:28

SBML – Sorry, I cannot agree with you on this. I’m normally one of the first to criticise the police for over-reacting but on this occasion, I think all concerned got it right. The nanny state is one in which we are all treated as potential terrorists: the responsible state is one which recognises that terrorists operate in unpredictable ways. I have no idea of all the forms a bomb can take but I do know that many ordinary suburban people have lost their lives to political beliefs that are not of their making. Hats off to the dustman and the Northamptonshire police who, in the event of a real bomb, would have saved us from yet more reactive security measures to further blight our lives.

4 JuliaM May 12, 2011 at 12:34

I think if it’d been a real bomb, we’d have had more to worry about than a ramping-up of unnecessary security measures!

SBML’s point still stands – all the signs pointed to it not being a real bomb, but they have a checklist to follow, and, well, can’t be too careful, etc, etc…

5 Time Traveller May 12, 2011 at 13:11: Which signs were they? And can you describe the appearance of a ‘real’ bomb for this lesser mortal?

6 SadButMadLad May 12, 2011 at 22:28

Terrorist do act in unpredictable ways, but they are predictable in other ways – in wanting to cause the maximum possible damage and get the most publicity. This case has neither of these.

These are dustmen who are trained to examine commercial bins just in case a person might be sleeping in them because of all the millions of times bins have been emptied one time a person died because there were crushed in the truck. The one single case of a dead person being found in a wheelie bin some weeks after their killing meant that dustmen were told to check wheelie bins for dead bodies by their TPTB who know nothing about the job except what they see from their office desk.

7 Fabian the Fabulous May 12, 2011 at 12:53

SBML: Neither your blog nor any of the links explain just what it was about the suposed bomb which attracted suspicion.

Instead of finding out, you content yourself with ‘The fact that the police have not given much detail… leads the reasonable person to assume” etc.

Assumptions are not the same as attributable facts, even if they turn out to be true.

Is this an example of the DIY journalism you wrote about last week!

8 SadButMadLad May 12, 2011 at 22:21: I thought I did. The newspaper stories reported it as a garbage man collecting yellow wheelie bins reporting the bomb.

When I talk about the lack of information from the police it’s because they normally do give out information about such details. I use the term reasonable person to fill in the gaps. That is a valid task to do, especially when I use the term which highlights the fact that I am not using facts.

And I am no journalist so I can be excused any problems in my articles. I can stand at the sidelines and criticise journalists but you aren’t allowed to criticise me because I am not one, I am only a blogger.

9 Blue Eyes May 12, 2011 at 13:22

Cannot agree with the basic premise of this story. Imagine for a moment that the the bin man had called up his control room and said “there’s what looks like a cardboard cut-out bomb used for a school play in this bin”. The message is relayed to the police control room verbatim and the police control room say “meh, cardboard cut-out, residential area, waste of time”.

There surely has to be a policy of checking these things out, at least at some level. Perhaps not putting a 500 yard cordon in straight away, but at least having someone other than a bin man looking at it?

The details hardly “leaked out” – they are published on the Northamptonshire Police official web site!

10 Blue Eyes May 12, 2011 at 13:25

PS what about another “hypothetical” for you. Imagine a well-known and high-class artefact shop in Whitehall lays its hands on a famous artist’s plasticine mock-up of a bomb, complete with alarm clock and dynamite sticks. The owner of the shop puts the mock bomb in pride of place in its front window so as to attract interest from passing trade.

The shop closes for the evening.

Later on, a passer-by happens to look in the window and sees said plasticine “bomb”. What is the correct course of action?

11 SadButMadLad May 12, 2011 at 22:16: That’s no hypothetical. It’s happened. The correct course of action is to note the context. Now you could say that a bomber could be extremely clever and break into the shop without breaking anything and leave it in plain sight in a shop in a quiet street as a kind of double bluff. You know, that bomb looks so fake it’s got to be when actually it’s very real. But then I would then argue that a terrorist could be even cleverer and hide a bomb in plain sight in a way that no one notices but causes the maximum damage and destruction and loss of life. Something like a delivery van parked near to a busy shopping centre like the IRA did.

Either you go thinking there is a bomb in every yellow wheelie bin or you take into account that the risk to your life from a terrorist bomb is very low and that you are more likely to die being run over by a police car rushing to a fake bomb alert. So keep calm and carry on.

12 vervet May 12, 2011 at 13:56

I’m fence-sitting on this one. I think the key issue is just how realistic or unrealistic the ‘b0mb’ appeared to be. I think most people could make a reasonable judgement and err on the side of caution if unsure. I do agree that the nanny state has made most people unwilling or unable to make such a judgement, however.
But as to the judicious use of resources … well don’t get me started. We have a police ‘service’ that is constantly moaning about their lack of funds, but will mobilize the force helicopter to find some moronic scrote that has nicked a pushbike.

13 JuliaM May 12, 2011 at 18:06: Wasn’t someone nearly charged just a few months ago after getting fed up being kept behind a ‘suspicious package’ cordon, and going in and removing the item (a lost shopping bag’, or something?)?

14 Fidel May 12, 2011 at 14:09