Is that a bomb in the window or...?

Isn't it wonderful to know that the anti-terror police in London are always on the ball?

From BBC News:

Police in riot gear were sent to raid a central London gallery after it put a fake bomb in the window.

Alison Southward, manager of Mauger Modern Art, in Rochester Row, Westminster, said she arrived at work to find officers in riot gear outside.

A police spokesman said it had received reports of a "suspicious" device.

The gallery said the "comedy bomb" was strapped to a step ladder and featured "Western-style bunches of dynamite" and an alarm. 

Once again we are faced by a collective common sense and humour failure from the morons who called the police and the officers that arrived at the gallery.

According to the owner, the riot police were even about to break the door down just before she turned up!

Now I don't know much about bombs, but I have been reliably informed that big sticks of red dynamite, wind-up bedside clocks, and A.C.M.E are something of the distant past.

But the Metropolitan police know best...

By Dylan Sharpe

Comments

[ThousandsOfMilesAway]

Bomb by Acme Inc.

Law enforcement by Keystone Cops.

[Pete]

Whilst I totally agree with your comment re "lack of common sense & humour", I cannot help but think what prat thought that
placing a,albeit not too realistic, bomb on the window sill in public view was "art"

I guess there are many people who imagine that bombs do look like that, so it would serve the gallery owners right if the plods had smashed their doors down.

[john b]

Yes, how dare anyone overestimate the intelligence of the public!

[guy herbert]

They forgot the big red electronic digital display counting down. Every idiot knows all bombs have that. (Or at least have since Goldfinger.) Every terrorist keeps a careful accounting of exactly when and where his infernal devices will go off, of course, and shares it with associates.

It would be laughable, but fro the fact that scenarios drawn from that sort of movie convention are used as the justification of real torture by people much more powerful than the Keystone Kops of this example.

[SadButMadLad]

I don't blame the police for turning up at all. They only had the report to go on.

It depends on how visble the "bomb" was as to what they did next. The photo in the BBC news report shows it attached to a step ladder. It would have to be a huge window. And looking at StreetView and GoogleMaps it does seem like it does have a plate glass window.

So smashing in a door when you can see into the art gallery quite clearly is possibly a step too far. Especially when you look at the context of the "bomb" being an obvious fake and in a gallery of art. I doubt that they were about to break in. The gallery owner turning up just in time was coindicence but I don't think she stopped them breaking in.

The thing that makes me think that the police weren't actually about to break in was the lack of a cordon around the gallery. If the police thought it was a real bomb there would have been a 100m cordon, with roads closed, buildings evacuated, etc. They wouldn't be take any risks.

If they were going to break in is was probably to remove the "bomb" from view so that no more stupid people phone them up about it.

As usual with news, it's been talked up a bit to sound like the police overreacting. It still plants the thought into the public's mind that you can never be too careful. People who make fake bombs are stupid people, just like people who make obvious fake twitter messages. In actual fact the people who report such occurances are the stupid ones.

[John Page]

And if it had been a double bluff and the thing had gone off?

If you had a police career, would you take that risk?

It was an infantile prank.

[Neil Robinson]

And how likely is that? Oh come on get real. That sort of attitude is the problem. Common sense and realism are the solution.

[Purlieu]

"A police spokesman said it had received reports"
yeah right