Discussion: Flour at IKEA leads to terror alert

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. The sprinkled powder forced hundreds to evacuate an IKEA furniture store.

New Haven ophthalmologist Daniel Salchow, 36, and his sister, Dorothee, 31, were both charged with breach of peace, a felony.

Police fielded a call Thursday that someone was sprinkling powder on the ground. The store was evacuated and police responded massively.

Daniel Salchow biked back to IKEA and told officers the powder was just harmless flour, which he said he and his sister have sprinkled everywhere from New York to California without incident. ''Not in my wildest dreams did I ever anticipate anything like that,'' he said.

A mayoral spokeswoman said: ''You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know.'' AP

Sounds a lot like the Aqua Teen Hunger Force debacle from Jan 31, 2007:



"You see weirdos running around in a park with maps, you never know."

What would they make of radio direction finding?
http://www.ardf.org.au/gallery/ev44_100_2482_1.JPG

"You see weirdos running around in a park with maps and a radio antenna, you never know."

I got on a tram at one stage with a parcel containing a car battery, a transmitter and a wierd-shaped antenna. I took the precaution of approaching the driver to explain...but he wasn't really interested and just told me to go to the back of the tram.

The only time I've ever got in any trouble was the night we were running through a park and some women on a balcony leaned over and asked me what was going on? "Don't worry" I said "Just go inside and lock the doors"....and ran off chuckling.

It was only 5 minutes later that an irate husband approached our car and abused Ian Stirling. Ian called me on the radio and warned me "not to come back to the car..."

I've occasionally been tempted to ring the national security hotline and tell them that I'm aware of a location where there are hundreds of highly detailed maps of the area around the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor (the location in question being the OANSW's office).

Increasingly, the U.S. is no longer the "home of the brave" but rather a dangerously powerful country, run by very fearful, conservative and uneducated people.

Where are our outraged young people? Who is to question the absurdity of our leaders' decisions? How can we regain our lost freedoms?

"When I see 5 weirdos dressed in togas, stabbing a man in the middle of a park, in front a full view of 100 people, I shoot the bastards. That's my policy."

-Frank Drebin

Hey Oxoman.. I see what you mean..

long hair.. backpack with strange liquid.. stopwatch and crazy pants..

Let's shoot him!

what about those SI e-punch boxes.... batteries, timers, wires , foreign looking ..... anybody had a "scare" problems with them ?

I gave a demo of SportIdent for LAOC in southern Calif. quite a few years back and was concerned that I would be stopped at security for carrying a bunch of SI units that had batteries, electronics, etc., but either the screeners were disinterested or not looking as I passed through without even being asked going and coming back.

In May, this year, during an orienteering event, there were several calls to the 112 concerning bombs that consisted of a small black box with a number on it and orange-white triangle. I'm not sure if a bomb squad came or just firemen, anyway, they realized quickly what was going on.
edit: forgot to mention that it was in Estonia, not US

This actually happened in St. Louis as well two weeks after 9/11. It was a hash run in Queeny Park. What I found interesting was the fact that the county detective managed to "decode" the trail markings and follow the whole trail. Having found the starting point of the run, he then did a web search and traced it the the STL hashers. He showed up at our run the next week and said it was cool what we were doing was fine, but just let the sherriff know for the next few weeks so if they got any more "reports" they could put the issue to rest immediately.

Increasingly, the U.S. is no longer the "home of the brave" but rather a dangerously powerful country, run by very fearful, conservative and uneducated people.

Last I checked, W had multiple degrees from Ivy League instutions. While I don't much care for our current policies, I don't think education is the problem. As for the brave, there are still young men and women willing to volunteer for what has to be the most thankless and dangerous profession on the face of the earth: defending a failed policy in Iraq. Let's give them a bit of credit.

I wasn't necessarily pointing the finger at the Federal gov't....the fear and malaise seems to be wide-spread at all levels.

Last month my Finnish wife was locked up by security at O'Hare because she was late for her international flight and expressed a bit of impatience after the 2-hour wait (not kidding) and screening where her bag was slowly searched.

And having spent 4 years' of voluntary service to our country during Viet Nam, I have my own opinions on the "bravery" of our armed men and women...did you see "60 Minutes" last night?

No, what triggered my comment was the news story associated with the subject incident, in which the mayor's office announced that they would seek restitution from the guy who was arrested, for the estimated $50 000 spent scrambling the New Haven police to investigate the Hasher's flour trail.

How many fewer hashes will result, since some "hares" may now be reluctant to lay down the traditional trail? And we (the active, running community) all lose a small piece of our freedom...

The FBI and Homeland Security have known about hashing for years. Foolish local officials have gone off the deep end from time to time dating since long before 9/11. Maybe if they would do a little research or check with Homeland Security before they panic, these stupid over-reactions could be prevented. Hopefully the local prosecutor is intelligent enough to let it drop and/or the local judge has enough brains to throw it out.

so why weren't the guy who phoned up about the flour and the police that overreacted charged with causing a bioterrorism scare?

The city I live in has been taken over by "authoritarian popularists" - love that expression - who have piled fear upon fear in recent months because a crew of princelings are coming to town - for APEC.

Who knows what would happen if you went hashing in the CBD of Sydney in coming days!

"edit: forgot to mention that it was in Estonia, not US"

Estonia must be chock full of them jack-booted thug conservative idiots as well. D#$$m those Republicans are everywhere.

There was also a case about 6 years ago where a few members of some European national O' team were questioned by police at an airport after a 'white powder' was found in the boot of their hired vehicle by the car hire company. They'd accidentally spilt some energy drink powder whilst mixing it before / after an event.

I've had sport drink powder tested by border authorities, entering Canada. They came back saying I was okay, but I'd better be careful, because it "almost tested positive". (What the heck does that mean?) I asked what it almost tested positive for, and they told me cocaine.

Is Bill Gookin pushing the envelope on his ingredients these days?

This kind of thing has been a worry for me before in certain areas. Done the hash thing before but as i live in South Africa terrorism is not hign on most ppls list of possible causes, ppl assume neighbour hood youths.
Geocaching may be another story, sneeking around historical landmarks ect, sometimes at night can attract attention.
We placed a cache in a nature reserve at night once, this nature reserve surounds a nuclear research facility and our light was spoted. We were on a cliff face and a neighbouring farmer spotted us. After esstablishing that we were notin trouble he disappeared to phone the "authorities" about ppl trespassing (which we were not) in a potentially sensative area. We made a quick escape before the authorities arrived to question us about scouting out possible terror targets.

I have this intuition that future hashes will pass through available IKEA parking lots to satisfy pro forma considerations.

Not being a hasher myself, I would just point out that although Cincinnati won't have an IKEA store until Spring 2008, the parking lot is already there...

A carload of orienteers were also detained by the police in Goulburn for possession of a mystery white powder on Australian Championships weekend in 1999. At least one AP'er was in the car concerned so I'll leave him to tell the full story if he feels that way inclined.