Yesterday the news was about a bomb threat at Harvard University and the evacuation of several buildings. And as expected, no bombs were found. I am assuming that the "authorities" feel that they cannot take the chance that the threat is real, so they allow pranksters and trouble makers to disrupt other's lives and business just by making an anonymous phone call.

This made me wonder: has there ever been an actual bombing that was preceded by a warning from the bomber? It seems to be that if one wishes to create mayhem, they don't send a warning, e.g., the Boston marathon bombings. If they want to create damage, but not hurt people, they would set the bomb to explode when the building or other area was vacant, but again would gain nothing by giving a warning.

Bomb threats seem to ALWAYS be false alarms, so I often wonder when we will no longer have the disruption of unnecessary evacuations and "lock downs" just because some loser makes an angry phone call.

Like when someone pulls a fire alarm or calls in a person with a firearm. It's better to be safe then sorry. Imagine how the news would treat a story where a call was made and the establishment didn't act.

Some do it thinking it's cool. I guess others want to get out of work, school etc. for awhile. Some just want to disrupt everyone else's life or have a grudge against a establishment. They don't realize how dangerous it could be to responders, anything could happen to them on their response. Then again what happens to them when they get caught, a slap on the wrist and maybe if the judge is harsh community service.

As for an actual bombing if someone wants to inflect collateral damage you wouldn't want to have the area evacuated. Even if someone wanted to do a ransom type of deal there probably wouldn't be time to have the establishment gather enough money unlike the movies you see about it. Just my .02.

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Psalm 23:4

To me that would be a tough call. I would agree that all these calls have been found to be bogus. Bombs have exploded with no advance warning which would be what a bomber would want to do to inflict as much damage as possible. With that said, I would not want to be the person making the decision to ignore a threat and then finding that it was not a fake threat. It's sad these days that these precautions are necessary. I'm old enough to remember when I was a kid and went off to play in the morning and only came back at meal time. We had free run of the neighborhood and were never afraid of much of anything. It's truly sad to see the direction the country is heading.

I think those responsible have more choices that evacuation/lock down or do nothing. Why not just search the building in question while allowing normal business to continue? Wanting to cover themselves "just in case" is what gives the prankster his/her power over the community. What if someone called the White House and stated that a never before heard of organization had just planted bombs in every airport in the nation, or every school, or every train station, etc.? Would the country be shut down? Leaders need to be responsible and not just take the easy route. Automatic shut downs and evacuations are a form of "zero tolerance" thinking, which really means "ignore use of brain" thinking and take the rigid approach so as to be beyond criticism "just in case". Seems crazy to me.

where I use to work in Colorado the night shift was told of a bomb threat that was a 911 call phoned into the police department that originated from a phone in the building which was in the break room. they cleared the building and didn't find anything. they had the supervisors listen to the 911 recording and they all recognized the voice. it was a guy on night shift that just wanted off work early that night. he got fired as you would expect and he seemed surprised.

During the Irish troubles most of the bombs in public places were planted with warnings. The aim was disruption rather than death. Bombs specifically intended to murder police, army, government officials and those of a different religion were not called in by the terrorists.

And if the bomb goes off in a building full of people?

You've got to react as if it were the real thing. Just can't take the chance that a bomb actually exists.

Oh, and the capper was that this if Finals week. You'd be amazed at the lengths some kids will go to in order to get out of a test! We've had it happen at the local University I work at.

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Even older, even crankier....

You beat me to the punch.

The Harvard case involved a threat that four buildings might hold bombs--pretty much guaranteed to cause larger-scale disruption.

The fact that it occurred during final exams looks pretty suspicious to me. Maybe someone wanted more time to prepare, do you suppose?

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Oh well, what the hell.

During the first Gulf War, I was the facility security officer for a cleared NASA contractor. In addition to personnel and document security, I managed the electronic access control system which controlled the interior and exterior doors.

As soon as the war started, I went to my pinhead, Klansman boss and told him that we should immediate reprogram the employee door so that it no longer opened automatically at starting time. He told me "no".

A little while after that, I was in the john in the basement across from where they built satellite hardware. Somebody came in and said everybody was to leave the basement and go to the lobby. They worked with hazardous materials in the labs, so I figured they'd had a spill. I finished up and went upstairs and found the lobby literally packed with people. I jokingly asked somebody if they'd had a bomb threat. He said "yes".

It turns out that one of the engineers in the basement received a phone call saying that there was a bomb in his cube. He reported it to David Duke, my boss, who told him to search his own cube. The engineer told him, "NO". Duke told him to do it again. The engineer told him, "Do it yourself." and went home.

Rather than evacuate the building, Duke merely ordered everyone to collect in the lobby. My immediate thought was, "What a fantastic way to concentrate everyone in one place for a mass shooting."

I eventually found out that that was just the LATEST of several bomb threats which had occurred, which he had not told me about.

After that, I started carrying an attache case to work... inside of which were my Series 70 Colt, a couple of extra magazines and a ballistic vest. I told my other boss (for classified IT support to NASA) what had happened, and that if anything happened, he should come straight to my office, which had an outer vault door.

Of course this same genius also ordered me to stop cooperating with the FBI who wanted call records for an organizer for the Iraqi Baath Party who was working for us, lost all of his classified access for discussing classified in open meetings, and who unlawfully masqueraded as the Facility Security Officer in order to illegally sign for a STU III secure telephone...

Stupid is as stupid does.....

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Even older, even crankier....

When we lost the rebid for our contract, the new contractor asked the NASA security office if they wanted him to be the new FSO. Their answer, and I quote, was "GOD NO!!!"

And the one time it's not a prank? Then what? Do you want yourself or your family to be there "business as usual" while the cops search and it goes off before they find it? What if it's on a short timer? Or a remote? Cops find It and the perp sets it off. Or maybe a motion sensor. Cops show up and BOOM! Or just very well hidden. Why risk all that?

We don't evacuate and your 5 year old dies with grandpa. Is that OK by you? Are YOU willing to put yourself and your family in that situation? Because if you're not don't put my family in it

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

and the answer is......

Harvard Student Accused of Making Campus Bomb Hoax to Get Out of Final Exam | TheBlaze.com

The dipstick has no idea of the hurt he has put onto himself.....

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Even older, even crankier....

A school janitor in Kirkwood Missouri called police after hearing what he thought were gunshots. When police arrived all they could find was a box of broken light bulbs that had fallen from a shelf.
I think most people on this board could tell the difference......but would you take the chance?

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Regards, Ron
USASA 1965/69

The Weathermen Underground bombings of the 70s.


Sgt Lumpy

Glad they caught the culprit, I hope the story goes on and on to let other people with low IQ's see what happens when you get caught doing this.

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Luke 22:36

There is often a second bomb, timed to kill first responders. I think that happened in the Atlanta Olympics bombing.

Close to 30 years ago when I ran the Bank Center in Pittsburgh a downtown mall we had a rash of bomb threats around noon which emptied not only the mall but a number of restaurants whose only business was the lunch crowd.

One day the Pgh police dragged a guy in my office telling me he had info on where the bomb was and we walked him through the bowls of the building Obliviously he was the one making the threats I am not sure what they did with him but that was the end of the problem.

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Len

Before I retired I was a senior bomb tech. for the Anchorage Police Dept. Bomb Squad.

Part of my job was keeping stats of bombings and bomb threats and report them to the FBI's bomb data center.

I also taught bomb search and reactions to threats. I did a bit of research on the subject and found (with the exception of the IRA) few bombers warn a head of time.

Anchorage use to get a bomb treats at high schools all the time. After doing a little research I found that a huge majority of the time, the threat occurred the first warm day of spring. Duh.

We couldn't order evacuations, we only advised. There are other actions that can be taken. In the case of the Anchorage schools I had them change the timing of the bells. To get the most damage you need to channel the targets. In schools that means getting them in the hall ways in such. Most kids would be safer in their classrooms.

By changing the clocks 15-20 minutes, you disrupt the timing.

Of course that depends on the treat. There are nothing to gain but terror in bombing schools, if terror is the goal, there would be no threat.

Again, its up to the school and info on the threat. Different targets are handled different.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on the subject.

A couple of times in the early '80's we had to evacuate sick people from the hospital at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, in the wintertime.

I didn't mind the work, that was what I was being paid to do. But hauling sick, elderly, and very young babies out in the cold (to another building) late at night made we wish I could have had 5 minutes alone with the dude calling.

Oddly enough the IRA rarely (if ever) employed that tactic. I believe it originated in the Middle East.

One of the problems we seem to be experiencing is the threat of a Secondary bomb(s) which are set to explode after the initial attack, when First Responders and police arrive at the scene to assist victims and conduct investigations. This is common in Israel and was feared in Paris, Brussels, San Bernadino, CA, and Orlando, FL.. This ensures that more people are killed and injured when they show up to help.

I'm with Arik on this. Disruptive as it is, and as unlikely to be a real threat, you just don't dare ignore it.

Even if it's as fishy as the Harvard case referred to above, it would be criminally foolhardy to do nothing about it.

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Oh well, what the hell.

Eric Rudolph the Olympic bomber.Used that method at the abortion clinic bombing in Alabama.

I worked on an airport and we got quite a few bomb threats...and some real ones. We got a new operations manager...essentially the boss of the police and fire people. Until we had an emergency then we were in charge. Got a bomb threat one day in the baggage area of Delta. Ops guy called us and ORDERED the fire dept to search for the bomb. Being in charge at the time I told the idiot we don't do that..we clean up afterward. He insisted in person so I got him in my command vehicle and drove him to the area..When I said let's go he said WHAT?? Told him if I had to search he was gonna be right there with me...He DID see the error of his way.. We always took bomb threats seriously. One of our cops removed a bomb from a plane after a shootout with the BG. The bomb people came and got it...shortly after transferred from the police to the Fire dept. I told him not to pick up any more bombs. Don't even say the word bomb on an airport..

Chief at a local university pointed out that most of his bomb threats were at the girl's dorm, in the warmer months. I wonder why?


The search of an area, particularly work areas, is better done by people familiar with the area. I might think a lunch box next to a desk is a suspicious object; the guy who has his lunch in it,not so much.

Some bomb threats were called into banks in Aspen, Colo. in the early 1990's. The BATF showed up and opened every safety deposit box looking for the non existent bombs. This was at the height of big drug money transactions in the area. It was popular believe the law itself called in the threats so that boxes could be opened. Though the government could not confiscate anything the found, they did know who to surveille, That is the story many choose to believe, whether it is true, I do not know.

We have some land at the bottom of our property that doesn't get visited very often, maybe once a year. It's remote, on a tight bend in the creek. The best way to access it is from a dirt road across BLM land that runs on the other side of the creek and wade across.
About 10 years ago a guy I know called and said hey, did you know somebody's camped on your gooseneck down there on the creek? Looks like the actually dug a little ditch from the creek up close to their wall tent.
I had no idea. Rather than handle it myself I called the Sheriff. When we got there, sure enough a well dug-in camp was set up but nobody home. Looking around inside there were canned goods and equipment and some kids' stuff. A deputy picked up a little pink duffel bag with Barbie Doll lettering and glitter on it and unzipped it and looked inside. He gingerly set it down on the ground and said "everybody out and back!!"
Long story short they had to bring in a bomb squad from somewhere and detonated a pipe bomb right there on the spot. The wouldn't let anyone near but I heard the detonation and it was a mile or more away. Blew a hole in the ground about 3 feet deep and 20 feet wide.
I was never informed about whether or not they caught anyone and they cleaned the place up like nothing ever happened. There were some fellows there with the deputies who looked distinctly un-Sherifflike.

Lately, there are those that do proclaim their intention and carry through with it.
It has to be taken seriously.
That's where our loss of intelligence is hurting us profoundly.

YES, both the IRA and the Weather Underground often called in warnings.