MIT student arrested in airport after strapping fake bomb to chest

[Laurent]

MIT coed with fake bomb 'art' arrested
By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON - Troopers arrested an MIT student at gunpoint Friday after she walked into Logan International Airport wearing a computer circuit board and wiring on her sweatshirt. Authorities call it a fake bomb; she called it art.

Star Simpson's attorney said the charges against her were an overreaction, but authorities expressed amazement that someone would wear such a device eight months after a similar scare in Boston, and six years after two of the jets hijacked in the Sept. 11 attacks took off from Logan.

"I'm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport," said State Police Maj. Scott Pare, the airport's commanding officer.

The terminal was not evacuated and flights were not affected, airport officials said.

Simpson, 19, of Lahaina, Hawaii, has expertise in electronics and even received a Congressional citation for her work in robotics, according to her lawyer.

She wore the white circuit board on her chest over a black hooded sweatshirt, Pare said at a news conference. The battery-powered rectangular device had nine flashing lights, and Simpson had Play-Doh in her hands, he said.

Two phrases that looked hand-drawn — "Socket to me" and "Course VI" — were written on the back of Simpson's sweatshirt, which authorities displayed to the media. Course VI appears to refer to MIT's major of electrical engineering and computer science.

"She said that it was a piece of art and she wanted to stand out on career day," Pare said. "She claims that it was just art, and that she was proud of the art and she wanted to display it."

There was a career fair at the university on Thursday, according to the university's Web site.

Simpson was charged with possessing a hoax device. A not guilty plea was entered for her and she was released on $750 bail.

During the hearing, Simpson smiled as she entered wearing a T-shirt and sandals. After she posted bail, she left in a taxi with a man who identified himself as her boyfriend, but neither would answer more questions from reporters.

Prosecutor Wayne Margolis had requested $5,000 bail, saying Simpson showed a total disregard for airport security concerns.

Ross Schreiber, who was appointed to represent Simpson, said she was not a risk to flee, cooperated with authorities and was a good student with no prior convictions. He said they would fight the charges.

"I would characterize it as almost being paranoid at this point," he said of authorities' response.

He said she had gone to the airport to meet her boyfriend. "She was there for legitimate purposes," Schreiber said.

Simpson was arrested about 8 a.m. outside Terminal C, home to United Airlines, Jet Blue and other carriers.

A Massachusetts Port Authority staffer manning an information booth in the terminal became suspicious when Simpson — wearing the device — approached to ask about an incoming flight, Pare said. Simpson then walked outside, and the staffer notified a nearby trooper.

The trooper, joined by others with submachine guns, confronted her at a traffic island in front of the terminal.

"She was immediately told to stop, to raise her hands and not to make any movement, so we could observe all her movements to see if she was trying to trip any type of device," Pare said. "Had she not followed the protocol, we might have used deadly force."

He added, "She's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."

Pare said Simpson had taken a subway to the airport, but he was not sure if she had the device on at that time.

Boston was the focus of a security scare Jan. 31 when dozens of battery-powered devices that featured a character making an obscene gesture with a finger were discovered in various locations. Bomb squads were deployed and some transportation links were closed temporarily. They turned out to be a promotion for the Cartoon Network. Two men were charged in that incident, but prosecutors dropped the charges after they apologized and performed community service.

Simpson was a member of MIT's swimming and diving team in 2006, according to the team's Web site.

She is the secretary of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Electrical Research Society, her lawyer said. She is a graduate of the Hawaii Preparatory Academy, a private boarding school, has won school prizes for chemistry and leadership and had received a Congressional citation for her work in robotics, Schreiber said.

MIT issued a statement saying the school is cooperating with authorities. The statement said: "As reported to us by authorities, Ms. Simpson's actions were reckless and understandably created alarm at the airport."

Pare praised the booth attendant and said the incident is a reminder of the terrorism threat confronting the civil aviation system.

"In this day and age, the threat continues to be there," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Mark Jewell and Glen Johnson contributed to this report.

MIT coed with fake bomb 'art' arrested - Yahoo! News

[Mira]

Kiss that MIT scholarship and future career buh-bye, girlie-girl! Damn, I'll bet her parents are freaking out.

[pacific breeze]

How stupid is she? It's incredible.

[celeb_2006]

It all goes to show that in this reality show infatuated and celebrity worship society, that every person wants their 15 minutes of fame. This lady damn knew well that she was doing it for the attention and media. She's eating it all up.

[aabbcc]

She's an idiot.

I saw this on the American news last night. Some jerkwad commented that she shouldn't have been arrested for "just wearing a shirt". Way to make yourself look like a moron on national tv.

[SVZ]

She said it was art. I say it was stupid.

[greysfang]

Dumbass. She's lucky she wasn't shot.

[sweet and sexy]

Agree. These days, that kind of art at an airporrt?

[twitchy]

2007.09.21 • 16:14 EST
Is Star Simpson's "fake bomb" just an art jacket?


Photo: AP/Lisa Poole

Star Simpson, a 19-year-old MIT student, was arrested at gunpoint Friday morning at Boston's Logan Airport when officers suspected that a circuit board and battery she had pinned to her sweatshirt was a bomb. Indeed, every news outlet is now referring to the thing as a "fake bomb," and Simpson has been charged with possessing a "hoax device." But pictures of the sweatshirt that officials are putting out show something quite less scary -- I have no idea what a real bomb looks like, but I don't think it's a plastic board with a 9-volt battery on it. Simpson's explanation is that the jacket was a wearable-art project she made so she could stand out at her school's career day (the plastic board lights up). All information now streaming in supports that view, and suggests that the affair could have been a misunderstanding, one that very nearly turned tragic.
This is my speculation only, but it seems quite possible that rather than intending to deliberately walk into Logan with a fake bomb, Simpson might instead have rolled out of bed with an art jacket she often wore around campus and slipped it on in a rush on her way to pick up a friend -- forgetting that she was heading into the all-fear-all-the-time black hole that is U.S. aviation.
What's the evidence for this? For one thing, as Xeni Jardin points out in Boing Boing's marvelous roundup on the story, Simpson is much into making cool, out-there techie stuff, things like a jacket that lights up. Her own Web site is currently offline -- click here later -- but you can check out some of Simpson's handiwork at her Instructables profile and look here for one of her recent school projects.
Simpson describes herself this way on the Web:
In a sentence, I'm an inventor, artist, engineer, and student, I love to build things and I love crazy ideas. In a paragraph; I'm currently studying computers and how they work at MIT. I play at a student-run machine shop called MITERS. Before that, I lived for a long time in Hawaii, while traveling the world and saving the planet from evil villains with my delivered-just-in-time gadgets.

A woman from Instructables.com who knows Simpson tells Boing Boing that Simpson's friends at MIT "say she wears the hoodie on a regular basis -- it's just unfortunate that she had it on while trying to pick a friend up at the airport. MIT students don't really do mornings, or worry about what they're wearing, so I can't imagine she'd even think about her clothes before heading out to pick up a friend at the airport before 8 a.m."
Cops are pointing darkly to strange text scrawled on the jacket -- "Socket To Me / COURSE VI." Guess what, "Course VI" is a reference to MIT's electrical engineering course, not an al-Qaida code name.
WBZ-TV has posted a video of Simpson being arraigned this morning. The student looks in good spirits despite what must have been a nightmare of a morning. She pleaded not guilty and was let free on $750 bail, but if convicted of the charges she could face up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
It could have been much, much worse. In a press conference state police Maj. Scott Pare said that Simpson is "extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used. She's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."
Damn. Had it not been for the six years we've already lived through irrational, useless, annoying, psychologically defeating overeager airport security -- put in place to prevent an event that could have been solved by a single measure, locking the cockpit doors -- the prospect of a promising young student being killed by cops for wearing a battery on her back might come as a shock.
But now it elicits almost no surprise. What, police at a major airport were about to kill someone for the crime of wearing a circuit board? Yeah, what else is new.

Machinist: Tech Blog, Tech News, Technology Articles - Salon



It's not a bomb. It wasn't intended to look like a bomb. Maybe she should have considered that some people will have fits of hysteria if they see wires connected to a battery but maybe once they realized that it wasn't dangerous and not a prank they could just have let her off with a warning. What purpose can charging her possibly serve? The people saying she's lucky not to be shot dead are the idiots.

[Mira]

This incident wouldn't have even happened 25 years ago. Shows just how much times have changed. It will be interesting to see how they handle this. Unfortunately, they'll probably make an example out of her. Maybe she deserves it, maybe she doesn't. I don't know.

In any case, she's probably learning a lesson right about now. I'm sure they're scaring the @#!@* out of her right now, so any famewhoring (which I doubt) has probably already faded.

[kingcap72]

Just goes to show you that just because somebody has book smarts, doesn't mean they have common sense.

[sweet and sexy]

Thanks for article and pic Twitchy. I thought it (the fake bobm thing) would be bigger, but it looks kind of tiny.