The Hanover Collaboration

To pick up the paper this morning, you might think that Boston yesterday was a picture of terror and chaos. “Panic was the order of the day”, swooned the Herald. There was “considerable disruption and anxiety in our community”, stated newly-elected Governor Deval Patrick. “Relatives across the nation were in fear for their loved ones here in the city of Boston,” said Daniel Conley, the Suffolk County DA.

Excuse me – is this Boston, Massachusetts, we’re talking about? Because I live there, and I sure didn’t see anything like that. I didn’t even get a nervous phone call from my mom. What I did see was a pretty serious traffic jam at the intersection of Route 38 and I-93 at around nine in the morning, but other than that, my day was pretty normal.

As I would later discover, the root of this traffic congestion, and this alleged terror, was a series of 12×16 inch rectangular panels with five batteries and a few handfuls of LEDs, not unlike the Lite Brite you used to play with as a kid. Apparently, a transit official stumbled across one at Sullivan Square station, and then, as the media has it, all hell broke loose.

Truth be told, the actual public reaction was a bit more subdued. A local blogger had snapped a photo of one of the devices weeks before public officials got wind of them. A local hairdresser, who came across another of the devices under the Longfellow bridge (just outside my office, by the way) didn’t seem especially cowed, either. “I kicked it”, she told the Boston Globe. “Then I picked it up.”

No, it seems the only people wary of these devices were the public officials sent to deal with them. “For those who responded to it, professionals, it had a very sinister appearance,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. “It had a battery behind it and wires”. I think I speak for anyone who’s ever used an iPod on the subway when I say I hope that doesn’t constitute the new legal definition of “hoax bomb”.

At any rate, the city took no chances. Highways were blocked off. Trains delayed. Bomb-sniffing dogs roamed City Hall. And not a single trace of explosive was found. In fact, the only discovery made by city officials during their search was one they could have gotten by simply asking anyone under the age of 30; the devices were an underground marketing campaign for the popular Cartoon Network show Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Several hours and an estimated one million dollars in public funds later, elected officials were out for blood. “It’s all about corporate greed” raged Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. “It is outrageous, in a post 9/11 world, that a company would use this irresponsible marketing scheme”. Authorities brought charges against the two local men who set up the devices, including a felony count of “placing a hoax device in a way that causes panic”.

Allow me a moment’s metaphor. Let’s say you pass out drunk, and I draw sores on your face. Obviously, they look nothing like real sores, since they were made with a Sharpie pen and nothing’s oozing out of them, but nevertheless, while you’re walking home, a public health official sees you and shouts “ebola!”, touching off a city-wide shutdown.

While some consequentialists might say the resulting loss of income and waste of public funds is my fault (for drawing on your face), or even your fault (for passing out drunk), I think it’s pretty clear the blame should lie on the public health official, who failed to asses the situation in a level-headed, logical way.

After yesterday, emergency response teams and elected officials in the greater Boston area do have a right to be upset, but only with themselves. They overreacted to something that a few minutes’ research would have revealed as completely innocuous. They’re now compounding their error by pressing charges in a scapegoat campaign.

If there’s anything to be taken away from this whole farcical episode, it’s that public money would be better spent training emergency response teams for real world scenarios. While the sweeping bravura of Jack Bauer plays well in prime-time, it’s sure not something I’d want to get caught up in on the ride home.