POSTED: 9:47
a.m. EST, February 1, 2007
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Authorities have
arrested two men in connection with electronic
light boards depicting a middle-finger-waving
moon man that triggered repeated bomb scares
around Boston on Wednesday and prompted the
closure of bridges and a stretch of the Charles
River.
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Meanwhile, police and
prosecutors vented their anger at Turner Broadcasting
System Inc., the parent company of CNN, which said the
battery-operated light boards were aimed at promoting
the late-night Adult Swim cartoon "Aqua Teen Hunger
Force."
Boston officials condemned Turner for not taking proper
steps to end the bomb scares earlier and for not issuing
an adequate apology to the city. (Watch how the scare
unfolded )
Turner Broadcasting said in written statements the
devices had been placed around Boston and nine other
cities in recent weeks as part of a guerrilla marketing
campaign to promote the show.
"We apologize to the citizens of Boston that part of a
marketing campaign was mistaken for a public danger,"
Phil Kent, CEO and chairman of Turner Broadcasting
System Inc., said in one of two statements issued by the
company.
"As soon as we realized that an element of the campaign
was being mistaken for something potentially dangerous,
appropriate law enforcement officials were notified and
through federal law enforcement channels, we identified
the specific locations of the advertisements in all 10
cities in which they are posted. We also directed the
third-party marketing firm who posted the advertisements
to take them down immediately."
Peter Berdovsky, 27, a freelance video artist from
Arlington, Massachusetts, and Sean Stevens, 28, were
facing charges of placing a hoax device in a way that
results in panic, as well as one count of disorderly
conduct, said Massachusetts Attorney General Martha
Coakley. The hoax charge is a felony, she said. Both men
were arrested Wednesday evening.
According to his Web site, Berdovsky is a graduate of
the Massachusetts College of Art and a founding member
of a video artists group called Glitch who goes by the
nickname "Zebbler" and sings in a band called "Superfiction."
Authorities believe Berdovsky was "in the employ of
other individuals" as part of the marketing campaign,
Coakley said. "How exactly this was executed, we are
still investigating." Berdovsky is scheduled for
arraignment at 9 a.m. Thursday in Charlestown District
Court.
Adult Swim shares channel space with Cartoon Network,
another Turner enterprise, but the adult-themed network
is a separate entity.
Wednesday evening, Cartoon Network was running a
statement during commercial breaks, expressing deep
regret for "the hardships experienced as a result of
this incident."
The devices displayed a "Mooninite" -- an outer-space
delinquent who makes frequent appearances on the cartoon
-- greeting passersby with an upraised middle finger.
But the discovery of nine of the light boards around
Boston and its suburbs sent bomb squads scrambling
throughout the day, snarling traffic and mass transit in
one of the largest U.S. cities.
"It had a very sinister appearance," Coakley told
reporters. "It had a battery behind it, and wires."
The statement from Kent said Turner Broadcasting deeply
regrets "the hardships experienced as a result of this
incident." (Read the full statement)
Mayor calls situation 'outrageous'
But Coakley, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and others said
the statement offering an apology was not enough, and
did not rule out criminal charges or a civil suit to
recover the estimated hundreds of thousands of dollars
it cost the city to respond to the bomb scares.
Menino told reporters he received a call from a Turner
spokesperson about 9 p.m. but had not yet returned it.
"I think the city deserves a call, not from a press
person, but from somebody in the corporate structure of
Turner," he said.
"I just think this is outrageous, what they've done ...
It's all about corporate greed."
He and Coakley said Turner did not give authorities the
locations of the devices and said they learned the
devices were Turner's when the company sent a fax to
City Hall at 5 p.m.
Officials believe there are 38 throughout the Boston
area, and 14 had been recovered as of 9 p.m., Coakley
said. "We heard nothing official from the people who
could have resolved this earlier."
Some of the devices were placed on private property, she
said, which "raises a lot of questions about, at the
very least, the responsibility of anybody who would do
this."
Asked about whether Massachusetts authorities would have
the jurisdiction to arrest people out of state, Coakley
said she believed they would if the offenses took place
in Massachusetts. Turner Broadcasting's headquarters is
in Atlanta, Georgia.
Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis called it
"unconscionable" that the marketing campaign was
executed in a post 9/11 era. "It's a foolish prank on
the part of Turner Broadcasting," he said. "In the
environment nowadays ... we really have to look at the
motivation of the company here and why this happened."
Earlier, Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll
called Wednesday's incidents "a colossal waste of
money."
The discovery of the light boards led state, local and
federal authorities to close the Boston University and
Longfellow Bridges and block boat traffic from the
Charles River to Boston Harbor. In addition, the
Pentagon said U.S. Northern Command was monitoring the
situation from its headquarters in Colorado Springs,
Colorado, but said none of its units were dispatched to
assist.
The first device reported was at the Sullivan Square
commuter rail station, near the suburb of Somerville,
Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon, four other
devices were reported -- near the Longfellow and Boston
University bridges over the Charles, at New England
Medical Center and near the intersection of Stuart and
Columbus avenues in the city itself, and four more
turned up over the course of the day.
Rep. Ed Markey, a Boston-area congressman, said,
"Whoever thought this up needs to find another job."
"Scaring an entire region, tying up the T and major
roadways, and forcing first responders to spend 12 hours
chasing down trinkets instead of terrorists is marketing
run amok," Markey, a Democrat, said in a written
statement. "It would be hard to dream up a more
appalling publicity stunt."
Turner Broadcasting said the devices had been in place
for two to three weeks in Boston; New York; Los Angeles,
California; Chicago, Illinois; Atlanta, Georgia;
Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas;
San Francisco, California; and Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
A Turner source said the displays were a component of a
third-party advertising campaign conducted by a New York
advertising firm, Interference Inc., which had no
comment on the incident.
CNN's Dan Lothian and Deborah Feyerick contributed to
this report. |