[Blue Lion]

And this is grounds for treating all kids as potential shooters?

There are millions of kids in school right now. Just as there are billions of Muslims out there. School shootings don't make kids dangerous any more than 9/11 made Muslims dangerous.

Now if the kid holding the motion detector has a known history of depression, aggression, isolation, threats, reported dangerous behavior - anything like that - then maybe you can worry.

But otherwise it's innocent until proven guilty.

Which is why we don't just grab random kids. Hey that backback could have a bomb! You look funny, where's your gun?!

Hey, that kids black, he must be dealing.

This is a VP who say an item they were sooooo sure could be a bomb, they called the cops.

They make you go through metal detectors and get your luggage xrayd at the airport. Do you make grandma go through the detector? Hell yea. Does the little 4 years old luggage get scanned? Sure does. Is it a pain in the ass and take forever, absolutely.

Okay, again, they called the cops after much discussion, at which point the arson teams and police talked to the kid, and then after a great deal more discussion brought in a robot, and then after that searched the guy's house.

It was an absurd overreaction rooted in a culture of paranoia.

So they shouldn't have called the cops? You wanted them to talk to the kid. They did.

You're telling me they talked to this kid, were convinced it wasn't a bomb and said "Well we know now it's not a bomb. But let's call the cops, why they hell not?"

And the cops came and knew it wasn't a bomb but dicked around anyways. Then they all laughed about it.

Could it be, and I'm just spitballing here, that the VP and the police were both concerned that the device could be dangerous? Could it be they felt like making sure there was no danger and weren't just out wasting time and hassling kids for laughs?

Do you know how many schools have attacks like this? I don't want to sound like an expert cause I'm not (totally not), but schools can be super scary. Maybe the schools you went to were great and violence free  but I have been scared ****less by a 12 year old and I'm 6'3" and a 175lbs.

Again, I'm not saying I know everything about schools and violence and whatnot. But believe me, from personal experience at least in the Baltimore area, schools? Can be super dangerous.

And I cannot fault someone for doing something that I can totally, TOTALLY, see myself doing. And I wouldn't feel bad about it if it turned out to be false.

[General Battuta]

We're now just arguing hypotheticals.

[Blue Lion]

I know, they're ALL hypotheticals. Every object you see could hypothetically be a bomb. 

Now obviously that pencil isn't a bomb. Or that juice box. Or that cell phone. That kid's bike isn't a bomb.

But as has been said in this thread many many many times, homemade bombs can look like almost anything. Clearly people with technical knowledge like engineers or scientists or even mechanical or electrical enthusiasts will be able to look at a device or object and more accurately say what it is and isn't.

Teachers trained in education and psychology aren't going to be able to tell, so there are a ton of things that could hypothetically be bombs. And they're the only ones who will see the next bombing (there will be a next bombing, and another and another)

The policy (which has been in place since before 9/11, I know because I was in high school before and we had a bomb scare at my high school) is always assume. Because the alternative is never assume.

You can't say "Don't do it unless you're really sure" because, as we've established, they have no idea what they're doing.

You can't tell parents that teachers and staff aren't taking action because it's probably not a bomb, and in the one case where it is a bomb, yea its gonna blow up. I don't think they'll send kids to that school.

[General Battuta]

If you think a bottle with some wires in it is a bomb then you have real problems.

If you think that one of your kids, behaving normally, showing no suspicious tells, socially engaged with his friends, is a bomber, and you choose to bring down all this crap on him, then you also have problems.

That's my argument, and I don't think it's going to change.

[Blue Lion]

If you think a bottle with some wires in it is a bomb then you have real problems.

If you think that one of your kids, behaving normally, showing no suspicious tells, socially engaged with his friends, is a bomber, and you choose to bring down all this crap on him, then you also have problems.

That's my argument, and I don't think it's going to change.

What exactly are the suspicious tells of a bomber? It's hard enough telling who is being bullied or a bully. Or who is depressed or suicidal.

Kids who are antisocial? Violent? That's tons of them. Moody?

Short of a kid running around yelling "I'm gonna blow you all up" all behavioral things could be something else. You can't just look at a kid and say "yea, that one is a bomber"

And you're telling me you can't make a bomb out of a bottle and some wires? Maybe it was gonna go in some kids locker.

We used to make 2 liter coke bottles explode, those bottles could blow up something good and those plastic chunks could cut you if you were near it (and we never were).

[General Battuta]

You can't make a bomb out of a bottle and some wires.

But, that issue aside, my earlier point stands as my opinion on the topic. I believe this is an extended form of self-justifying paranoia unsupported by any contingent risk/benefit analysis.

[Blue Lion]

You can't make a bomb out of a bottle and some wires.

But, that issue aside, my earlier point stands as my opinion on the topic. I believe this is an extended form of self-justifying paranoia unsupported by any contingent risk/benefit analysis.

How can you make a motion detector out of a bottle and some wire? This kid clearly did.

[General Battuta]

I'm assuming he used more than a bottle and some wires.

Since he built a working motion detector, I imagine he could then show you the motion detector, which would demonstrate to your satisfaction that this bright kid deserves praise and support.

To imagine that the kid built a motion detector to hide his bomb indicates an unsettling degree of fear.

[Rian]

Look, I think you guys are having two totally different arguments here.

Blue Lion, you’re correct that in the case you seem to be arguing—when a school official sees an object that he or she believes to be a bomb—the appropriate response would be to defer to a more knowledgeable authority. From the individual teacher’s perspective, that is the best way to protect his or her students.

However, false alarms are much more common than legitimate threats. And if every possible threat is escalated into a full police response, with bomb squads and searches and everything, then that’s a bad thing. It’s a tremendous drain on public resources, which leaves less to commit to other threats. It’s traumatic for everyone involved, and it creates a climate that’s hostile to the kind of individual experimentation and learning that a technology school should be encouraging.

What Battuta et al. are arguing is that the response in this particular case was disproportionate, and that the system as a whole should contain checks to identify false alarms before they generate this kind of absurdly overblown reaction. Teachers should absolutely still report a suspicious object to their superiors, but in cases like this it may be possible to confirm that the object is benign without calling in a bomb squad. Since this occurred at a technology school, there were probably a half dozen teachers right there on campus who could have confirmed that the object was what the child claimed it was.

[General Battuta]

Right, yes.

I don't know why I can't manage to just say it that cogently myself. Presumably I am a dunce.

[Blue Lion]

Look, I think you guys are having two totally different arguments here.

Blue Lion, you’re correct that in the case you seem to be arguing—when a school official sees an object that he or she believes to be a bomb—the appropriate response would be to defer to a more knowledgeable authority. From the individual teacher’s perspective, that is the best way to protect his or her students.

However, false alarms are much more common than legitimate threats. And if every possible threat is escalated into a full police response, with bomb squads and searches and everything, then that’s a bad thing. It’s a tremendous drain on public resources, which leaves less to commit to other threats. It’s traumatic for everyone involved, and it creates a climate that’s hostile to the kind of individual experimentation and learning that a technology school should be encouraging.

Absolutely, 100 to 1 it's a real threat, a thousand to 1. A hundred thousand to one? How do you know when to call it in? If you think it's a bomb, you get your boss (principal) and if they don't know or aren't convinced, it's cop time.

You're right, 99.9999% it's not a bomb and 99.998% they don't call the cops. If they did, this would happen every single day. The fact we even have this news story tells me it's not all that common.

If the teacher and principal don't know and are unsure? Call the cops.

In this situation, we clearly have no idea what the kid said, or what the object looked like. We don't know what the VP said. Everyone is saying oh yea tech school. Do you know what they use technical schools for around here at least? Problem kids. Kids who probably couldn't handle a 4 year college so they send them to tech schools to get certificates in careers that don't need a bachelors. So you hear tech school and go "wow, smart kids", I hear it and go "oh god".

We know sooooo little it's crazy. We know the kid had a device. It was homemade and had parts that I, as a layperson, would see as parts that could be used as a bomb. The VP obviously thought that as well because even after talking to the kid, they called the cops.

We can't assume she was nuts because we know NOW it wasn't a bomb. Could she have been mental? Absolutely. She could be some crazy 70 year old lady who thinks every DS lite is a murder simulator. I have no clue.

That said, I think some people think this happens way more than it really does. And unless someone comes in and says otherwise, I just can't imagine the full bomb squad routine happens THAT often.

I'm almost positive most of it is "What is that?" "Uh, radio" "Oh, put it away and leave it at home" not "OMG COPS!"

Side note time! Our tech ed teacher decided to put a fake pipe bomb on the busted copy machine in the teacher's lounge with a note that said "problem solved". Yea the lady in the cleaning crew didn't get the joke.

The fact that it was very obviously a 2 dowels of wood with a clock taped to it didn't matter all that much.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, the fact that this false positive was not caught earlier in the process indicates a problem with the system.

[Blue Lion]

Yeah, the fact that this false positive was not caught earlier in the process indicates a problem with the system.

But we don't know what happened. We don't know what it looked like. I can't say they overreacted unless I was there. Was there a video I didn't see? Do you guys know the VP? How are you guys making this call?

That's why I make general statements on what teachers and staff do when they see things they think could be explosive devices. Not this specific example, we weren't there

[Rian]

In other articles relating to this incident there’s a quote calling the guy a “genius-type kid.” It doesn’t sound like he was a problem student, and I’m pretty sure that the reaction went a bit overboard. Every situation is different, and a full-scale response is not always the most appropriate reaction. If you go for maximum escalation in every case then you’re just crying wolf.

Anyway, I don’t see what’s so controversial about saying that there should be mechanisms in place to prevent false alarms from causing mayhem. Terrorism exists for the express purpose of causing mass panic, and if your response protocol does the same thing then what have you gained?

[Colonol Dekker]

It's not mass panic. 
 
There weren't riots on the streets or people stampeding over each other.
 

[General Battuta]

A school was closed down for hours and a home was searched. That's pretty mass in proportion to the magnitude of the threat (unrecognized gizmo.)

[Colonol Dekker]

I disagree.
Mass panic always paints a mental image of at least a citywide reaction. This was just one investigation.
 

[Kosh]

How is taking an action that helps ensure my safety and the safety of the children around me illogical? Remember, I think it could be a bomb.

I once built a device in electronics class. It was a black rectangular box with a switch on one side, and a small LED display grid on the front. What do you think that is? If I showed it to you, would you call the cops on me?

Actually, y'know what, I don't think we're getting anywhere here.

Welcome to the wonderful world of debating with BL. 

[Ghostavo]

What I still can't wrap my head around is not the VP calling the police, it's not the VP and the police talking to the kid, the kid denying it's a bomb and then the police ignoring the statement and going to check if the device is not a bomb. Up until here it can be "sort of" justified. The VP and the police were wary of the kid and his device and so wanted to really check what was it. Sure a bit paranoid, but still within the bounds of reality.

What I can't understand is why after they determined the kid was telling the truth and that the device was not a bomb, they thought it was a good idea to check the kid's house and then after not finding a thing, to recommend the kid and the parents for counseling.

[Blue Lion]

I once built a device in electronics class. It was a black rectangular box with a switch on one side, and a small LED display grid on the front. What do you think that is? If I showed it to you, would you call the cops on me?

Do I think it's a bomb? That's kinda the hinge. You guys have been great saying "What if you see something you don't recognize" while you leave off "but it looks like a bomb to you"

But here is the kicker, you just said "I'm in electronics class". You've just changed the example. He's in a class not a hallway. He's under the supervision of a teacher. He's working on a project that the rest of the class is also probably working on, not some homemade thing he made on his own.

BUT! Even given your example, I am still allowed to follow my protocol: ask the electronics teacher.

Isn't that amazing? That I can ask the person who is in the room supposedly watching these children. I'd ask what that is and the teacher would say "They're making gigamabops"

That's the great part, I don't call 911. I get the principal and they decide if they get to call 911.