 Police: MIT Student Arrested at Boston's Logan Airport With Fake Bomb Strapped to Her Chest A college student with a fake bomb strapped to her chest was arrested at gunpoint Friday at Logan International Airport, officials said.
After a Massachusetts Port Authority official notified State Police about 8 a.m., troopers tracked Simpson down outside Terminal C, where they arrested her and later determined the device was a fake.
She is extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used, Pare told The Associated Press. And she is lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue.
The woman, identified as Star Simpson, 19, was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and approached an airport employee in Terminal C at 8 a.m. to inquire about an incoming flight from Oakland. She was holding a lump of what looked like putty in her hands, authorities said. The employee asked about the plastic circuit board on her chest, and Simpson walked away without responding, according to Major Scott Pare of the State Police. Outside the terminal, Simpson was surrounded by police holding machine guns, Pare said. She was arrested, and it was quickly determined that the device was harmless. She said it was a piece of art and wanted to stand out on career day, Pare said at a press conference. She was holding what was later found to be playdough. Affixed to the front of her black sweatshirt was a pale beige circuit board with green LED lights and wires running to a 9 volt battery. Written on the back of the sweat shirt in what appeared to be gold magic marker was the phrase socket to me and below that was written Course VI. Simpson will be arraigned today in East Boston District Court. Thankfully because she followed our instructions, she ended up in our cell instead of a morgue, Pare said. Again, this is a serious offense , I am shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport. According to the MIT website, Simpson is from Kihei, Hawaii, and is a sprinter on the schools swim team. On Simpson's personal website at MIT, she says she is studying computers and enjoys tinkering in a student-run machine shop. In a sentence, I am an inventor, artist, engineer, and student, I love to build things and I love crazy ideas, the website says. Labels: breaking news os9user fake bomb u.s. airport alert
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