Turner Broadcasting planted fake devices around Boston, forcing police to treat each as real. Security expert Robert Siciliano explains why law enforcement must respond to every threat as genuine, citing DHS protocol and liability. He says the response was strong but admits uncertainty about handling an actual bomb.
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Breaking news at this very hour. The city is now accepting the statement by Turner Broadcasting that they were behind having perhaps people plant these suspicious devices, 9 as we speak, possibly more into the night, around the city of Boston. And the mayor is quoted as saying he's outraged, it's outrageous, and he's working right now with City Hall lawyers to see if they can file a lawsuit against Turner Broadcasting, which we have reporting has accepted responsibility. That's breaking news from Boston Police Headquarters. I'm Dan Janick. Fox 25 News. David.
Alright, Dan, thank you. And, uh, we want to bring in our security expert again, Robert Siciliano with Street Safe Security, to kind of flush out— as Robert, every couple minutes it seems like we get some new information, uh, in this. Let me ask you this question: we hear from Turner Broadcasting that these devices are certainly, uh, don't pose any threat, that this was a harmless mistake on their behalf. Why is it that we still see the investigators, the police, the bomb squads out there going to different bridges to pull these events— pull down these different items. Why not just say at this point, okay, it's a hoax, we don't need to go to every single bridge and pull these down?
Well, this cartoon terror that we're experiencing right now, you might see it as the boy who cried wolf. But in reality, authorities have to respond to every incident the same. It's proper procedure, it's protocol. Because if something was to go wrong, if there was an actual problem and they just blew it off, —then that would cause serious liability.
So you think they're doing a good job in how they're responding to this, and you think they've been doing a good job throughout the day? This has been great.
This is a perfect example of the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to train first responders to do the right thing, to be there, to secure the premises, and to protect our citizens.
And you say this is a good way that they've trained our people, our first responders, but we've also been trained as citizens, haven't we, in the past couple of years that We've always been told to look out for suspicious behavior, and basically that's how it started this morning, with one person saying, "Hey, I just saw something that I deem to be suspicious." The DHS has a website, ready.gov, and it is the citizen's responsibility to go there, to learn about what your responsibilities are, and to pay attention to those red flags.
And that's just what's happened today. People have seen something out of place and they've responded.
And we just have a couple of seconds left with you, just a yes or no type of question. Should we feel confident after seeing this throughout the day that we're ready for for something when it does indeed happen and it's real? That's a tough question.
Now, if an actual bomb was to go off, I'm not quite sure.
Okay, but you think we did a pretty good job?
I think we did a great job of responding.
Absolutely. You never can tell when it is the real deal. All right, Robert Siciliano from StreetSafe Security, we thank you for coming in this afternoon and spending some time and giving us your insight.
