Scary alert on my street today

I was coming home from shopping this afternoon in my urban neighborhood carrying two heavy shopping bags. As I rounded the corner to my street I saw yellow police tape preventing access to the street and sidewalk and two LEOs keeping people out. Both ends of the street were closed off and people said that two adjacent streets were also closed off.

Ever try to get accurate information from a crowd in this kind of situation?
"It's a bomb"..."it's terrorists"..."it's a terrorist bomb"...it's a biochemical device"..."it's a nuclear device"..it's a dirty bomb"...."Harry, what's a dirty bomb"?..."It's time to move out of the city"...etc. etc.

The officers were pretty close-mouthed but finally one said a "suspicious package" was found and had to be checked out. Within about 15 minutes we were given the all clear and normal life resumed.

Turns out the "suspicious package" was found right in front of my building and we were never told what it was. Even though this incident definitely got my attention I felt almost completely detached from potential danger; probably a protective reaction like the calm fatalism displayed by people living in earthquake zones or Israelis living with daily explosive death.

This war is different; it's HERE.

Brightnorm

Yikes brightnorm - nothing will rattle the cage quite like a mysterious package and some police attention. Glad it you got the all clear.

Jay-sus Brightnorm, glad that it turned out ok. It would've been nice to know what was in that package though!

There was a "suspicious package" scare somewhere that was in the news a few weeks ago. They evacuated the area and called out the bomb squad. The bomb squad decided to blast the package with a powerful jet of water to soak it and hopefully disarm it.

As it turned out, the bomb squad blasted the smithereens out of... a chocolate cake. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

In Israel something like that is very common. Whenever there is anything that is suspiscious looking, the bomb squad just blows it up. No questions asked. They have gotten very good at it. They put some sort of shield over whatever they are blowing up, and the deonation destroys the object cleanly inside the shield.

I remember a post by 4x4Dragon
He ordered a Streamlight Clipmate and a scope lens cover from midwayusa.com that has gone missing????

You dont rekon it was that do you???

[ QUOTE ]
IlluminatingBikr said:
In Israel something like that is very common. Whenever there is anything that is suspiscious looking, the bomb squad just blows it up. No questions asked. They have gotten very good at it. They put some sort of shield over whatever they are blowing up, and the deonation destroys the object cleanly inside the shield.

[/ QUOTE ]

Makes sense, except if it's radioactive....there goes the neighborhood /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Brightnorm

A police scanner sure would have been nice to have, eh?

Pretty close to home.

I'm your typical "concerned" albeit nosey resident of my neighborhood, and as such have been listening to police scanner broadcasts for eons. I've never divulged what I heard to the neighborhood, just kept it in the family, until one day, our local PD decided to "upgrade" their radio system to a digitally encrypted one. They have now forced me to break the law by purchasing a cyphertext chip and to needlessly modify the discriminator circuitry of my scanner just so that I may still stay informed. Why should it be a crime to listen to "public airways" when their encryption key is clearly broadcast with every transmission? Makes ya kinda wonder what the gestapo is really hiding.

Abbie

Abner, if the "Gestapo" is hiding something, I guess you and your scanner will be the first to know. But it makes sense to me that the police would want secure communication so the drug house they are about to enter won't be ready and waiting for them.

There are a lot of law enforcement officers at CPF and they have my respect and appreciation.

Never know, even a non hell-bent disaster can find you:
Here

As the song goes:

There is a fine line between pleasure and Pain...

I mean OPSEC and maintaining public accountability /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Norm i'm glad you and the people around you are safe /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif.

[ QUOTE ]
IlluminatingBikr said:
In Israel something like that is very common. Whenever there is anything that is suspiscious looking, the bomb squad just blows it up. No questions asked. They have gotten very good at it. They put some sort of shield over whatever they are blowing up, and the deonation destroys the object cleanly inside the shield.

[/ QUOTE ]

23-19!!

23-19!!

23-19?

10-22 the 11-86. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Have you seen Monster's Inc.?

Yes, but I don't remember that.

Should we be allowed to listen to everything the FBI or CIA says? Do you want people listening in on all of your work related conversations? Why are the police different?

I thought the reference to the encryption was pretty ironic. If the key is brodcast with the transmission then all they've done is gone to a digital (less prone to noise in theory) signal. It's not 'encrypted' for 'security'. There are secure ways to communicate that are fairly immune to eavesdropping.

A few years back it was discovered that our President's security forces used normal text pagers to coordinate the movements of the first family. It was silly, because they would not tell enyone exactly when the POTUS was going to arrive for a speaking engagement (for instance), then transmit the information over public airwaves.

I had the software needed to decode the various pager tones on my laptop once, and was amazed at the messages zipping past.

Daniel