Sunday, August 26, 2007
Not enough fear in this country:Story: (emp add) NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Two people who sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare and now face a felony charge.
... ophthalmologist Daniel Salchow, 36, and his sister, Dorothee, 31, who is visiting from Hamburg, Germany, were both charged with first-degree breach of peace, a felony. The siblings set off the scare while organizing a run for a local chapter of the Hash House Harriers ...
Police fielded a call just before 5 p.m. that someone was sprinkling powder on the ground. The store was evacuated and remained closed the rest of the night. [...] Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said the city plans to seek restitution from the Salchows, who are due in court Sept. 14.
"You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know," she said. "It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We're thankful it wasn't, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out."
posted by Quiddity at 8/26/2007 03:30:00 AM
3 comments
The Hash House Harriers have been around a long time. Even before 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, there were confrontations between hashers, alarmed citizens, and the authorities. Post-9/11, though, it's become significantly worse, and there have been several cases of hashers getting into trouble over trail marks.
To us, it's all innocent fun (until we start getting thrown in jail). To nervous citizens, blobs of mysterious white powder on the ground are suspicious. To fire and police departments, hashing is becoming an enormous pain in the ass.
Some hash clubs have stopped using flour to mark trail, and are using chalk marks instead. Even that can be a problem. But hashing is popular and growing more so, and probably isn't going to go away.
If you're interested, there's more about hashing at my blog.
On On,
Flying Booger
Remember: If you see something, shut the f--k up.
Chances are, youll win the lottery before you see an actual terrorism related incident.
Seriously.
OHMIGOD My 10 year olds soccer field has anthrax all over it!!!!
|
