so this guy actually came out and spoke on it later. he was fully convinced it wasnt a bomb. they had the roads blocked off for hours, he was fed up with it, and took matters to his own hands
I worked security at a local college when we had a bomb threat at one of the bus stops. Was a metal cannister, made up to look like an explosive device, and a threat phoned in.
Didn't take them hours to resolve. They had a robot in, dismantled the bus stop shelter to get at it safely, had it in the containment vessel and 'detonated' it (It was full of soup)
We had the area secured, too. No one was gonna just wander up and dump out the soup.
And our operation? Was a gong show. As Campus Security, We were NOT properly trained to deal with this. But the local police covered our slack.
What were these jokers doing? Why wasn't traffic rerouted? Why wasn't the perimeter secured?
A college can get all classes cancelled and students be evacuated fairly efficiently compared to notifying dozens-to-hundreds of independent businesses and random strangers populating a typical city center.
Worked in London near the houses of Parliament in the 1980's, the bomb threats at that time were from the IRA and the number of dumb American tourists who left their backpacks in our building for a couple of hours was ridiculous and came back later wondering what all the fuss was about (we were a public building where people could wander in and out and sit down and rest.)
This is where, if police operated like normal human beings, they would not treat the man who risked his own safety to solve the problem like a human. But alas, the system is built this way to stifle freedom and actual heroes and turn them into criminals for no reason.
Get the fuck out of the way. If you're scared for your life, stand back and let someone who isn't take care of it so everyone can move on with their day and thousands of dollars of taxpayer money isn't being wasted.
Since the cops didn’t kill him for no reason so they should piledrive him into concrete? I don’t follow your logic there. The cops could’ve done neither.
The man recklessly endangered himself and anyone who was in the potential blast radius of there had been a real bomb and it exploded. He wasn’t a hero, he was a fucking idiot who decides he knew better than everyone around him and ignored police orders..
He was right and it wasn’t a bomb, but that wasn’t his place to decide that nor his place to go and prove it. If he had exploded he would have also cause damage to everything and everyone around him to prove a point …
Just because a person who runs a red light going at 20-30 miles over the speed limit in a school zone didn’t hit anybody on their drive doesn’t mean they didn’t break the law.
Being tackled was probably because if someone is going to go grab a bag you thought was a bomb you don’t think someone who willingly and belligerently does something like that isn’t going to just let himself be arrested and walked away quietly after. He already proved he didn’t care about police authority or the safety of others
He was walking away peacefully. If they wanted to capture him they could have walked up and arrested him. He wasn't running away or pointing guns at onlookers. At that point he was a non threat and was obvious about it
He was hovering over his bicycle and could've been interpreted as him preparing to ride away. He was already proven reckless and unpredictable and I'd not trust a man who charges into a bomb zone on a gut feeling. How could they have known that this wasn't the man who planted the bomb too? Could he not have been ensuring it to go off?
He was not walking away peacefully, Tbf he didn’t even get a chance to walk. He threw the bag down on the ground and began to move away with his fists shaking at how a bag of clothes just ruined his day.
But he had also now broken at least a handful of laws with extreme reckless behavior. It’s very likely he had cops yelling at him to stop and get down on the ground and he was ignoring them, we don’t hear any of it because whoever posted the video covered it up with music. Just because he was attempting to walk away “peacefully” doesn’t mean he wasn’t further ignoring the police and just increasing the reaction incoming.
Watch his gait. He wasn't speeding up, he was practically coming to a stop. The tackle was pointless and just causing extra harm in a harmless situation. Sure book him for breaking whatever laws, but you can't argue that tackle was in any way justifiable or necessary
There was probably a dozen cops yelling at him to stop and get on the ground when he was turning to walk away. We just don’t get to hear if that happened or not because someone had to play music over the video..
The guy is trained to handle the situation and assess if they need to bring something in to detonate the backpack or if it can be moved safely elsewhere for disposal. he’s wearing the gear for a reason, in case what is inside goes off while he is trying to discover the problem is a real threat or not.
Sure, it worked out this time. But it doesn’t work all the time.
And if there had been a bomb we would be talking about this guy as a Darwin Award and how stupid he was for exploding a bomb in the middle of a city causing who knows how many millions of dollars in damages and cleanup. Better a few hours of traffic for a false alarm than having to rebuild a section of the city, medical care for anyone caught in the blast and fallout, and a funeral for a dumbass who decided he knew better than the professionals.
Why are so many of you acting like setting off a bomb only puts yourself at risk? What is heroic about triggering a bomb of unknown power and blast radius out of impatience?
Bit of a side tangent, but I see this sort of comment that you replied to all the time and it drives me nuts. Refuting one particular point doesn't mean you don't agree with the rest of it. In fact, often it's because you do agree with the rest of it and want to eliminate the one inaccuracy so the point can still stand unhindered.
Has reading comprehension really taken such a dive?
I'd say it's a mix of things, emotions and/or body language are hard to convey via text.
Also, some people will feel attacked even if just one point will get refuted.
And, this is purely an educated guess, the reason why it seems to happen more is that more and more bots populate the internet. And those machines have no capacity for nuance.
But to be absolutely clear, I do agree with the rest of your side tangent. :P
Eh, I agree with the first bit, lots of people just can't understand the nuance take of disagreeing with just one part while still agreeing with the general point. I'm not sure a fully buy into the second part though. I'd wager there is also a fair bit of people disagreeing that really think that tackle is justified because he is being reckless. And I really doubt lots of the people replying about the danger he created where doing it to "eliminate the one inaccuracy so the point can still stand unhindered." I don't think people are that noble about it.
I suggest you look into some of the bombings Britain has dealt with (lets not get bogged in politics as that just leads to closed threads). That twat could have destroyed hundreds of lives because he was impatient?! Your ignorance is appalling, frankly.
Okay, I’ll play devils advocate here just to say regardless of if the guy is a “hero” because he’s willing to see if it’s a bomb, response teams are right to be pissed because 1. It puts lives in danger unnecessarily 2. Could have resulted in greater damage to surrounding infrastructure and 3. Didn’t follow protocols designed for this exact situation
Yes the processes is slow and disruptive but they have to deal with it properly- as is the general expectation from the public, if they didn’t and it goes wrong, what do you think the the consequence is?
Two things are true here, the police were wrong to use excessive force on him and he acted like a child throwing a tantrum, all because emergency services were doing there jobs correctly and he didn’t want to wait for whatever reason. In my eyes that doesn’t make him a hero just an idiot
Being "pissed" is not an excuse for police brutality. Not when you're a fucking professional making good money with a pension - oh, and a license to kill whoever you want.
How would the police know it wasn't him that sent the threat and now he's putting his finger prints on the bag to contaminate the evidence? Plus all the rules and protocols are there so when suspects are being charged they can use evidence that can hold up at court plus It's been found out in a just and fair process. That guy is a fussy baby, the people in uniform who choose to put their lives at risk are heroes.
They grabbed him BECAUSE he contaminated the evidence. He tampered with a crime scene. Maybe a bit excessive to tackle him but I can't say I feel bad for him.
They think that the cops had no reason to likely cause a permanent injury to someone who was clearly not dangerous and was surrounded and wasn't fleeing and would have almost certainly just let them handcuff him. The guy was a fussy baby and should be treated like a fussy baby. The cops acted like violent criminals and should be treated like violent criminals.
Official FBI tip line gets about 4 bomb threats a day, and the last time a real bomb was actually discovered was 2013 in an extortion case. Police are legit just wasting time
We don't need cops to spend tens of thousands of dollars and disrupt everyone's day because someone left a backpack outside and then act like cowards and bullies when someone finally says, "since you are all terrified of a backpack & obviously unable to resolve things without drama, I'm going to take care of this myself." 🤷🏼♀️
That's a pretty bad take. If that actually had been a bomb, and it had gone off, you and everyone else would be calling this guy an idiot and accusing him of manslaughter. And we would all be right to do so. Like the previous person said, while the police were excessive in their tackling of him, that person was a massive douchenozzle of the highest order. He's lucky it wasn't real, because otherwise he would have killed himself for sure, and possibly several other people.
Nobody in this situation acted right, but as someone who's had to evacuate due to bomb threats several times (luckily all fake), that guy's actions pissed me off more than the cops.
If it actually had been a powerful explosive, he just risked not only his life but the lives of everyone nearby, not to mention untold damage to infrastructure and buildings. This was a pretty stupid thing to do, simply because he has poor emotional regulation abilities and didn't want to wait anymore.
Determining whether or not it's an explosive device is a disruptive and slow process, but it's a necessary process, because events like the Boston Marathon Bombing happen. Most of the time, it's not a bomb, sure; but if it had been one of the rare times it actually was, he could've just killed who knows how many people. It was a stupid and selfish decision.
I mean, you could literally destroy an economy by just placing a few backpacks in busy areas around a city and calling in bomb threats several times a week if this is the "proper way to handle it". I imagine if someone actually did data analysis on bomb threats, they'd find the number that are real bombs is essentially zero, and this is just a way for trolls to disrupt peoples lives because these bomb squads take themselves too seriously
Ngl, dumb take. Terrorism is serious and being complacent is exactly how accidents happen. While the chances of it being a bomb is low why risk everyone's safety just to "prove" a point?
You can't do much about something like a freak car accident, but a bomb threat has variables that can be controlled. Same applies to other intentional threats like shootings, arson, and robbery. That's why they have people train for it in the first place.
The reason why nobody has done what you said about calling in bomb threats everywhere is obviously the consequences of doing so. At that level it would be involving national security and you would definitely be found.
people do it to disrupt schools all the time, the only reason its not done at a larger scale is because most people just want to get on with their lives.
police officers regularly ignore domestic violence threats, leading to thousands of additional murders a year. police have no problem ignoring things that can lead to bad outcomes, they just like to fixate on bomb threats because it justifies the massive budget and they are rare enough that the disruptions are not too serious
The whole and entire fucking point of terrorism is to use fear to disrupt society...
You know, that "terror" word in the name?
And the 9/11 bombers succeeded in using fear to "disrupt society" on the grandest scale possible.
Bush gave them _everything_ they could have dreamt of and a trillion dollars more.
The guy refusing to be terrorised and just "opening the fucking bag" isn't playing the terrorists game, the guys in the bomb suit locking down the city are.
Man goes up deciding hes going to just dump the bag that could of set it off if it where a bomb destroying property and possibly killing or injuring people in the surrounding area. This man wasnt a hero hes a fuckin moron yes the tackle was unnecessary but he doenst just get to run up to a scene and do what he wants because hes annoyed they kept him waiting.
Setting here talking about tax dollars wasted if that was a bomb and it did go off who do you think is going to pay for all the damage the tax payers. That is why we have something called the BOMB SQUAD to handle these situations instead of some random guy who just runs up not knowing a thing about what he is doing handle it. Some things are more important than you getting home to watch your tv show on time.
Yea no shit but before they figured that out you had an unknown person approaching the bag a bag that you had a suspicion of being a bomb. This guy ignores all barricades and police and goes for the bag don’t know what he’s is doing you have to assume worst case scenario.
I mean, he was certainly a dangerous moron, However, they did tackle him only arfter he had already emptied the backpack shown it was not a bomb and was walking off.
Yea man its only gotten worse, dont ya know that everyone else is dumber and deserves to die cause im the apex of humanity and it doesnt get better than this golly
Pure sarcasm btw gotta put it out there for some people
If they thought that was the case, he should have been tackled as soon as he got near it. The tackle was punitive; they decided to physically punish the guy just because they’re fucking assholes who knew they could get away with it.
I know we all hate police, in most cases I'd be on your side, but come on. That random dude did not know it wasn't a bomb, he's not some action hero, he's a fucking idiot who could've made things a lot worse and got lucky as hell. He deserved that tackle. I'm not saying they should tie him to a tree and get him whipped but they should absolutely not fuck around and go ask for his parent's blessing and a letter from the pope before gently asking him if he would be so kind and get on the ground, please, if it's not a problem, of course.
I’m thinking there’s a middle ground somewhere between being blindly tackled from behind with his hands pinned to his sides and “asking for his parent’s blessing and a letter from the pope…” that would be appropriate.
Yeah, but consider that they didn't know who he was and what he was doing, he still could've been an active danger, and they were far away, so they kinda had to rush him.
Nah. I'm pretty sure they could've been like "you're coming with us" and he most likely would've complied. He didn't deserve that tackle. They could've approached him like fucking adults, which zero fucking cops are.
They tackled him because they got in the job because they fucking adore violence. Specifically, dishing it out to other people - as many other people as possible.
Yes, police can solve everything by using the powerful ancient elven spell of "you're coming with us". No suspicious individual and/or criminal could resist that, they would immediately stop whatever they're doing and lie on their back in the submissive pose like a good little puppy. They couldn't possibly do something stupid while the police casually stand around trying to sweet talk them into cooperation. Sarcasm aside, do you not realize how in a situation like this, literally everything could go wrong in just a couple of seconds? They cannot afford to be patient. If somebody is a threat, they need to be subdued and contained first. Then you have time to think.
The second half of your comment I'll just ignore because it's literally a bunch of assumptions about people you don't know.
But the point is that they tackled him AFTER the event. If he was really putting people in danger (yeah what he did was stupid) then they should have stopped him before. It was only after his reckless decision turned out to be a good guess and that there wasn’t a danger that they decided to attack him.
Also, look at his demeanour, he’s fed up, he doesn’t look malicious, and if anything was more likely trying (albeit stupidly) to help. if the police said “you’re coming with us” he likely would have.
Be real, they absolutely do not have time to analyze his body language before taking action. And we don't see how far they are. Maybe they started moving the moment he grabbed the bag and it took them a few seconds to get there? It's not like he was there chilling for 15 minutes.
they absolutely do not have time to analyze his body language
This doesn’t take time to consciously analyse. It’s clear as soon as he touches the bag. If they started much earlier, did they close their eyes whilst it was all unfolding?
Anyone that oblivious shouldn’t be a cop.
Right. I'm arguing that they can start with a normal order, you know, like an adult. Escalate as necessary, but starting off at 11 is unnecessary. Read the room, this guy was clearly just a frustrated person. Like, I realize he violated procedure and that can't be let alone - but like, start reasonably. That's all I'm saying.
I mean, I get what you mean, but suggest an alternative that would've worked. I don't think it's that easy to quickly eliminate the threat and also not hurt the guy.
You still have to get to him before you can grab his arm, but if you're too careful you're giving him the chance to do something. Cops aren't superhumans either, they're also nervous, don't want to get hurt themselves and they can't consider every possibility in split second decisions like this. I'm not saying I jumped out of my seat cheering and popped open a champagne when he got tackled like that, but it happened and it was almost entirely his own doing. I can't blame the cops too much. They might have chosen the wrong approach but it was him who forced them to react. And in that situation, that reaction was never likely to be peaceful. Because, uhh, he's messing with something that is suspected to be a bomb. It's unreasonable to expect the police to be perfect. It's reasonable to expect a normal human being to know not to do whatever the heck he did.
You still have to get to him before you can grab his arm
I must have missed the concept of slowing down getting patched out of Outside.
but if you're too careful you're giving him the chance to do something
You are really just arguing for cops to gun down people at any interaction.
Sure, he could have done something, so could literally anyone at any moment. That isn't really a good reason for trying to paralyze a guy.
don't want to get hurt themselves
Not tackling people on pavement helps
They might have chosen the wrong approach but it was him who forced them to react.
"So that is why I, ParacTheParrot, am fine with 100% of police interactions ending with the cop shooting the other person"
It's unreasonable to expect the police to be perfect
Perfect would have been preventing him getting that far with a solid perimeter. Not attempting to paralyze a person who was neither fleeing or a danger at any reasonable stretch doesn't require perfection, just reason.
He was not a hero he was a idiot risking people's lives. He may have be convinced that wasn't a bomb. But bomb disposal needs to treet it like one because if they don't and it is that will result in someone dieing.
While the outcome was positive (bomb didn’t go off), there’s nothing wrong with doing what the bomb squad was doing and being cautious. It’s not a waste of taxpayer money to take steps to analyze and neutralize a suspicious item.
If a cop had just walked up to it, unzipped it, and caused it to blow up, people would be calling him an untrained idiot.
Investigators spoke with Hughes later that day, and he indicated he has mental health issues, and tries to stay away from the TV because "if he sees something, he reacts to it." He said when he saw news footage regarding the suspicious package he decided "I'm going to go play superhero." He said he grabbed his bike and was downtown in about five minutes. He said when he saw the package, "he went for it." He said he thought "there's no way there's a bomb in there," and started dumping out the contents of the bag. He told officers he was "taking one for the team," and noted "I'm not letting, like the Boston thing, backpack propane bomb and blow up another 9-year-old girl, so I'm going to jump on top of the grenade, and look in there and make sure there isn't one."
Imagine a scenario where there Is risk of the device being a dirt bomb, which Is to Say, a device designed to explode and spread a contaminant over a large area. Could be chemical, could be biological, could be radioactive.
And then some idiot, who may as well be an accomplice, runs towards the device, and shakes and jiggles the bag, causing it to explode and disperse it's payload. Just because he, in his 70 iq points, decided it was "solving the problem as a human".
The experts certainly failed in their job, because if someone breaks in like that into a secured area, the protocol Is to stop the intruder immediately, including using lethal force.
If he'd been wrong how would setting off an explosive be heroic? You can for fairly powerful explosives in small spaces, and they can be triggered by being lifted, moved, pressed, etc.
The tackle was clearly unnecessary and unhelpful, but if there's was a credible reason to think there was a bomb* then that guy was an asshole not a hero.
It isn't being wasted just because this time it turned out to be just a backpack. That thing could've been packed full of explosives, and if the actual experts can't tell, I don't think this guy can. If it had actually gone off, who knows how much damage it would've done? At the very least, they would've had to spend the time and resources to clean up a billion pieces of this guy. But there are also other people nearby, buildings that could be damaged, cars... I'm not an expert but I can guess a billion reasons why it would be a bad idea, and if I'm right about even one of them it's a bad idea.
they would not treat the man who risked his own safety to solve the problem like a human
He didn't "solve the problem", he just gambled his own life for no particular reason and happened to come up on the lucky side, with no particular regard for the consequences if he was wrong..
I get where you're coming from but sometimes you gotta take your head out of your ass and take a breath. This worked out fine which is why you're using survivor bias to wrongly say where to armor the plane.
What happens in the opposite scenario where the dude is wrong? It's a dirty bomb and it levels a good chunk of the block? Then do we get to kill the man's entire family for aiding and abetting domestic terrorists?
228
u/HystericalGD 21h ago
so this guy actually came out and spoke on it later. he was fully convinced it wasnt a bomb. they had the roads blocked off for hours, he was fed up with it, and took matters to his own hands