The headline:
Boston scare suspect videotaped bomb squad
One of the men criminally charged after placing blinking cartoon advertisements around the city and causing a terrorism scare videotaped a police bomb squad removing one of the devices, but did not tell the officers the object was harmless.
Surveillance cameras caught 27-year-old Peter Berdovsky videotaping officers removing what they thought was a possible bomb last week.
"Mr. Berdovsky didn't do anything inappropriate," his lawyer, Walter Prince, said Tuesday.
Let's try an alternate history, with this headline:
Two dead terrorists, many unanswered questions
Police fatally shot two men who interfered with a bomb squad that had been removing one of many mysterious electronic devices planted in vulnerable places.
Authorities said the two men had been videotaping the removal of the device. Police said they believe that the men were planning to provide al Qaeda with the video so the terrorist organization could have a better understanding of U.S. police methods and procedures.
The suspected terrorists, Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, approached a police officer standing by yellow tape that had been placed around the Sullivan Square transit station. As they tried to gain the officer's attention, he warned them back. The American-born terrorists slipped past the yellow tape to confront a group of police officers standing next to a cruiser nearby.
"The subjects were ordered to stop," Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. "They persisted in attempting to engage the police officers in conversation. When they turned to leave, one of the terrorists stated that he had placed the device at Sullivan Square and had placed other devices in other locations. Upon hearing this, the officers discerned that one of the terrorists was holding a weapon. Both men were killed in the ensuing gunfire."
The "weapon" turned out to be a video camera. Police were examining the camera last night to determine if it was booby trapped.
|