Earlier today (well, yesterday) a suspicious bag was reported in Lawrence Hall by a stupid paranoid student, Junior Ben Reider. The ‘suspicious’ was a backpack padlocked to the bathroom stall by fellow student, Garret Soan Lon Len, for ‘safekeeping’.

DPS, EPD, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING?! WHAT?) responded to the call with bomb-sniffing dogs. In retrospect, it looks like an over reaction, but every false threat seems like an over reaction. Calling in DHS might be a bit much, but it’s that one time you under react to a real threat that it’s game over.

Turns out that there was nothing suspicious about the backpack…except for the fact that it was padlocked to a bathroom stall. Great going, Mr. Len, you really showed your mental prowess there in trying to keep your bag safe. Or were you just so damn lazy that you couldn’t carry it on, oh I don’t know, your BACK? Mr. Len is being charged with disorderly conduct, which holds a minimum fine of $255. I thought disorderly conduct was being a drunken douchebag bro and pushing people on the sidewalk in front of Taylor’s, but I guess leaving backpacks around constitutes a similar offense.

But it’s not all Mr. Len’s fault. How paranoid do you have to be, Mr. Reider, to automatically suspect that a backpack is a bomb? And just think for a moment, why the hell would anyone want to bomb Lawrence Hall? Well, maybe all the architects stuck there on Friday night in Studio…anyways, good job. You’ll forever be known as the College student who cried wolf. I think you should at least have the courtesy to offer to pay for half of the disorderly conduct fine.

The ODE has the rest of the story.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 23:49 by Sean Jin and is filed under Blowing Stuff Up, Crime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.