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Geocache causes bomb scare in Ottawa


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FYI:

 

Source www site: http://gordon.dewis.ca/2008/07/26/geocache...care-in-ottawa/

 

Geocache causes bomb scare in Ottawa

July 26, 2008 @ 11:36 By: gordon Category: Current affairs, Geocaching

 

Thursday’s Metro Ottawa included a story that opened with the following:

 

A suspicious package attached to a pole forced the closure of Riverside Drive and a section of Ottawa’s bus Transitway for several hours yesterday.

 

That description made me think "I wonder if it was a geocache", so I popped over to the OttawaGeocaching.com forums to see if anyone had posted about it and sure enough, it looks like Dead End Cache (GC1DT9M), now archived, was destroyed by the bomb disposal robot. At least it was "not deemed hazardous".

 

Pictures of the geocache from some of the logs show that it was a flat metal container with a green "official geocache" sticker on it. In other words, another opaque geocache container on a bridge reported to the police as "suspicious".

 

While the hiding spot probably wasn’t the best choice (on a bridge over the Transitway), this incident probably could have been avoided if the container had been transparent. Chances are that the person who reported it to the police wouldn’t have been concerned about it if it was a Lock ‘n’ Lock full of trinkets they could see into, and even if they did report it to the police, the police would very quickly have been able to determine there was nothing dangerous in it without having to open it. Instead, the police ended up closing a section of the Transitway, and parts of Riverside and the overpass it was on for several hours, and paramedics, firefighters, the bomb squad and the Hazardous Materials Unit were tied up while it was being investigated.

 

So, let’s start using more transparent containers. And, let’s stop placing geocaches in locations where people looking for it could be mistaken as doing something nefarious.

 

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3 Responses to “ Geocache causes bomb scare in Ottawa ”

# 1 Ken Says:

July 26th, 2008 at 12:23

Geocaching needs to be banned now, to prevent further chaos within the city limits. This just goes to show how careless and uncaring Geocachers are.

 

hehehehehehe

 

KIDDING!

 

# 2 Squid Says:

July 26th, 2008 at 21:08

Geocaching is going to GET banned if people can’t start thinking with their heads instead of their arses.

 

I’m not even going to start with the container… Applying my security-guy point of view:

 

1. If it was hidden on a bridge it is ASKING for trouble. You don’t hide packages on bridges. Even before the 9/11 crap, it was a stupid idea to leave unattended packages on bridges. That just screams out “bomb”. Ditto for dams, power stations, outside police and fire stations, and any other kind of public structure that might seem to be an appropriate target for a miscreant with explosives. Common sense here…

 

2. It was on a transitway bridge, therefore it was on private property in violation of the geocaching guidelines. It shouldn’t have been approved in the first place. More to the point, the basic rule of “don’t hide on private property” applies in spades to the Transitway, so it probably shouldn’t have been hidden in the first place.

 

3. I absolutely concur about the transparent container thing.

 

# 3 Squid Says:

July 26th, 2008 at 21:10

And this time they didn’t blame it on me, like the last two. That will at least keep me from ranting out a geocache forum.

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Here is another one :0

 

Clipped from cache page

__________________________________________ _________________________________________

 

GC1CQD7

 

Lake Herkert Hide

A cache by Shabadu Hidden: 5/29/2008

Size: (Small)

 

N 45° 53.616 W 066° 45.267

In New Brunswick, Canada

 

Nice spot on a sunny afternoon. Look out for kids playing around the area.

 

Small cache, be stealthy, lots of traffic in the vicinity...

 

Cache Logs

July 29 by timrs2001 (1114 found)

It is a shame that this happened but not uncommon for our sport.

This often happens in cities.

If there is any repercussions Gadget is a good person to deal with it.

Even if it means he's in jail and misses his wedding. :ph34r:

 

July 29 by Insp Gadget (1295 found)

I received a call from the RCMP this morning concerning this cache. Seems some women did indeed see me find the cache, no matter how careful I was being. He said they had the bomb squad out for 5 hours, xrayed the cache, removed people from their homes etc. Most of the police there had not heard of Geocaching, so I am going to try and meet with the bomb squad and give them a heads up about it. Cst Daley said no one is in trouble, but the cache did look like a pipe bomb with no markings on the outside. The cache has been removed by them and they suggest (rather strongly) that no new caches are hidden in the area.

 

July 28 by exotic adventures (2 found)

Just to let you know that the RCMP bomb squad was sent to lake Herkert today to this geocash. I saw them there and didn't relize until later what was going on. Since I had found this one and live on the lake here I went back tonight to check. Sure enough the geocache was gone!! Several neighbors were wondering what was going on. Interesting to see if it's in the paper tomorrow.

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I understand why Insp. Cameron was cheesed off, but his remark "We have people putting things into pipes with wires out of it. They're trying to make these things look funny or amusing. They're not." was a bit over the top. To the reader unaware of geocaching, this generalization makes it sound like part of the object of our hobby is to intentionally make our geocaches look suspicious for kicks. While I agree the hider in this case did not exercise the best judgment, I have also seen how quickly people can jump to ridiculous conclusions these days, ie. calling the police because they see a tourist photographing a public building, or some such other innocuous activity.

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Yes, the pipe/wire thing was a bit over the top. Worse, I know for a fact that Ottawa police have been informed about geocaching, although that doesn't mean that any individual has been specifically briefed.

 

it really boils down to:

 

1. the hide was in a spot that was, as I see it, in contravention of the hide guidelines put forward by geocaching.com.

 

2. the hide was in a spot on a piece of public infrastructure in a place that was in full view of "muggles"

 

On the strength of those two things alone, there's a huge issue. Compound that with someone who calls 911 and says "I think there's a bomb on the Hurdman bridge over riverside" and the bomb squad gets a live exercise. I don't know what was said, of course, but I bet if the call was soemthing more like "I saw some guys skulking around a lamppost on the bridge and it looks like they left something" then I would imagine a more measured response.

 

The fact that we, as geocachers, might think that some members of the public are overly paranoid is largely irrelevant. The public IS paranoid, and we have to guide our actions accordingly.

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Transparent container while may be an option would not help if you ask me. When you see something suspect from a distance and the idea of a bomb is what you have in mind then you won't get close to it to see if it's really a bomb. I remember a movie scene where they used a transparent container.

 

This will have to stop showing in the news or the next bomb guy will have the idea to buy an official geocaching sticker and place it on the bomb container.

 

There is no real solution here... the most simplist container could be a bomb as so the next container you will look at could also be.

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....So, let’s start using more transparent containers. And, let’s stop placing geocaches in locations where people looking for it could be mistaken as doing something nefarious....

 

I know you are quoting someone else.

 

I disagree strongly on both accounts. A transparent container is a feel good measure. They still need x-rayed or whatever else they do lest the things inside the container that aren't transparent be a bomb. In other words, it only make it LESS likely for the Avergage Joe to phone it in, meaning it's the perfect camo for a real bomb.

 

Also since anybody can mistake anything for something nefarious at any time in any location for any reason they want banning these things is another feel good measure. It's far simpler to look at the probable responce. "Something mistaken on the capitol building/elementary school/courthouse/major highway bridge = big responce, probably not good". Then you can focus on locations and not each and every individual container and the person hiding it.

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This makes me feel that a micro or a nano might cure this issue. It is less likely to be as suspect compared to small and regular sized caches. With that said, it doesn't excuse the fact that it was approved while it was hidden in a transit station.

 

Misha

Link to comment

Read the guidelines people and I quote,

 

Caches near, on or under public structures deemed potential or possible targets for terrorist attacks. These may include but are not limited to highway bridges, dams, government buildings, elementary and secondary schools, and airports.
Link to comment

Yes, the pipe/wire thing was a bit over the top. Worse, I know for a fact that Ottawa police have been informed about geocaching, although that doesn't mean that any individual has been specifically briefed.

 

Oh good, I am glad I am not the ONLY geocacher to breif Ottawa police / be interrogated about the subject.. :mad:

 

From pictures of the cache it looks as though the cache was clearly labelled, and even had contact details of the owner - and was not a pipe with wires sticking out of it. What kind of police chief do you have over there?

 

7ebc5479-229c-4d2a-9fd0-f471f6ed1d7b.jpg

 

Read the guidelines people and I quote,

 

Caches near, on or under public structures deemed potential or possible targets for terrorist attacks. These may include but are not limited to highway bridges, dams, government buildings, elementary and secondary schools, and airports.

 

I dont think anyone would disagree that placing a cache under a bridge right in front of the department of National Defence might be a "bad" idea - i think it makes us all look bad. That is what the needs archived message is for. When you find something that is in poor taste, just do it.

Edited by Juicepig
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All the police would have to do is get the coords of the "suspicous package" and cross reference with geocaching.com to see if there might be a cache in that area, then they would get an idea of what they might be dealing with. All this would take is a few short minutes and not many hours of wasted time. Simple idea.

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All the police would have to do is get the coords of the "suspicous package" and cross reference with geocaching.com to see if there might be a cache in that area, then they would get an idea of what they might be dealing with. All this would take is a few short minutes and not many hours of wasted time. Simple idea.

 

That's only if the police are aware of what geocaching is. I know a lot of police officers (through work) that don't have a clue what geocaching is. Unfortunately we live in a semi paranoid society where too many folks jump to conclusions and watch way too much CSI on TV. I think it's incumbent on the associations to make time to go to their local police and educate them. Perhaps a learning session. If we don't I think this kind of thing seriously jeopardizes the future of geocaching.

 

If you think this is bad check out some of the geocaches in Afganistan. I wonder how they can do geocaching there where everyone is super paranoid.

Edited by jem_389
Link to comment

Funny this would show up the day after I drop in to Ottawa to visit my cache. I was reading through my logs last night and actually found a page in it written by a police officer who was called to the cache by someone who thought it was a "drug cache". He left a nice note, replaced the cache and even signed with the police report #. At the same time, the person who called the police left a kind note explaining why they had done so. I think I recruited two new cachers that day!!

 

It would be nice if caching were more prominent and that law enforcement officials were aware of them. It will take time, but we can spread the word bit by bit.

Edited by Bzzliteyr
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Not all of the bomb squads blow them up:

 

Texas Bomb Scare

 

There's definitely some education needed with law enforcement agencies...and geocachers being mindful of where they're placing caches and how it may look if someone stumbles upon it.

Cool your cops have cool toys (X-Ray) that ours don't have, we have to wait for the robot to be flown in from one of a few central centres, not in this province. Please remember our military uses SeaKing (most in use since the 1950's) and older choppers and those things are the way the robot flies to our area :mad: We are generally lucky if our police (RCMP) even have a police dog unit available within a few hours drive.

Link to comment

Yes, the pipe/wire thing was a bit over the top. Worse, I know for a fact that Ottawa police have been informed about geocaching, although that doesn't mean that any individual has been specifically briefed.

 

Oh good, I am glad I am not the ONLY geocacher to breif Ottawa police / be interrogated about the subject.. :mad:

 

From pictures of the cache it looks as though the cache was clearly labelled, and even had contact details of the owner - and was not a pipe with wires sticking out of it. What kind of police chief do you have over there?

 

7ebc5479-229c-4d2a-9fd0-f471f6ed1d7b.jpg

 

Read the guidelines people and I quote,

 

Caches near, on or under public structures deemed potential or possible targets for terrorist attacks. These may include but are not limited to highway bridges, dams, government buildings, elementary and secondary schools, and airports.

 

I dont think anyone would disagree that placing a cache under a bridge right in front of the department of National Defence might be a "bad" idea - i think it makes us all look bad. That is what the needs archived message is for. When you find something that is in poor taste, just do it.

 

If the sticker was a controlled item then maybe, but in the eyes of the police those stickers could just as easily be attached to a real device, and go boom when they checked it.

 

Another local cacher "Misha" sent this to the RCMP

*************************************************************************

 

>>> RCMP Website 7/29/2008 2:06 PM

>>> (comments)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is being sent to prevent future issues like what happened in Ottawa, or New Maryland, NB this week.

 

Here is a Method to avoid the RCMP bomb squad from having blow up Geocaches.

 

For most detachments this would be a good idea.

 

1. Join Geocaching.com (Free)

 

2. Sign-up for premium membership ($35)

 

3a. Track new sites and log a “Must Be Archived” note on risky sites

 

3b. Setup pocket queries (an automatic search that contains lots of site data)

 

4. Open the PQ's in Google earth, or Garmin Map Source (included with Garmin GPS) to view current sites Higher quality maps extra.

 

5. Have data on specific geocaches and coordinates, so if one becomes an issue it can be identified and dealt with, involving a minimum amount of resources.

 

6. Output to GPS 500 points per GPS, some models will take more points

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Even easier, would be to have the local RCMP/OPP/Local police detachment create an account, set their location in the profile, then get a once a week email of new caches in the area.

 

I am sure there are people working in the 911 call center that have some slow evenings, they could even do it as a secondary duty...

Link to comment
(geezer55 @ Jul 30 2008, 05:59 AM)

 

All the police would have to do is get the coords of the "suspicous package" and cross reference with geocaching.com to see if there might be a cache in that area, then they would get an idea of what they might be dealing with. All this would take is a few short minutes and not many hours of wasted time. Simple idea.

 

That's only if the police are aware of what geocaching is. I know a lot of police officers (through work) that don't have a clue what geocaching is. Unfortunately we live in a semi paranoid society where too many folks jump to conclusions and watch way too much CSI on TV. I think it's incumbent on the associations to make time to go to their local police and educate them. Perhaps a learning session. If we don't I think this kind of thing seriously jeopardizes the future of geocaching.

 

Most of the newscasts that I heard started out with an explantaion of a GPS receiver then went on to talk how it was used for geocaching and then went into how many men and how many hours it took to get rid of this cache. That is why I made the statement I did. Geocaching has been on the news around here at least once a month or more for the last year, not only for bomb scares.

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...Most of the newscasts that I heard started out with an explantaion of a GPS receiver then went on to talk how it was used for geocaching and then went into how many men and how many hours it took to get rid of this cache. That is why I made the statement I did. Geocaching has been on the news around here at least once a month or more for the last year, not only for bomb scares.

 

You can reverse it and say that if bomb squads can only find harmless items to blow up, then perhaps it's time to re-allocate the forces to more productive duty.

 

It's so easy for everone to forget the real problem, which in turn created the need for the squad, and by having the squad false alarms will happen. It's a side effect of the real problem, but not a problem in and of itself. I wish people would just say. "It turned out to be a false alarm. We would rather have a thousand false alarms than one real bomb. Please continue to call in anything suspicouse so we can do our jobs and hopefully one day the need for a bomb squad will go away".

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All is fine in the Ottawa geocaching community. I was the one taking the reporter out geocaching. (getting lsot was the magellans fault :unsure: ) I had the joy of hosting our monthly event last night. (great time!!) I was busy in the morning and knew that reporters and police may show up at the event. Thank godness the event as at 6pm same time as the news so just the officer in the reports. Turns out til 24hrs earilier he had not heard of geocaching himself so spoke with little info (this cache was not a cylinder as he says it was but more of a cigar case nor did it look like a bomb with wires). But after checking out our local site ( www.ottawageocaching.com I think after the first interview) he saw we were okay. Talked about ways to improve comunication and what we can do. Clear containers in urban setting helps the bomb squad. Enjoyed a drink with us as we discussed how media twist things to sell papers. We are not out of control in Ottawa but we do have a direct line of comunication with the bomb squad!!

Link to comment

All the police would have to do is get the coords of the "suspicous package" and cross reference with geocaching.com to see if there might be a cache in that area, then they would get an idea of what they might be dealing with. All this would take is a few short minutes and not many hours of wasted time. Simple idea.

sooooo all i have to do to place a bomb on some major structure is make it seem like a cache?

 

*joking*

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It's so easy for everone to forget the real problem, which in turn created the need for the squad, and by having the squad false alarms will happen. It's a side effect of the real problem, but not a problem in and of itself. I wish people would just say. "It turned out to be a false alarm. We would rather have a thousand false alarms than one real bomb. Please continue to call in anything suspicouse so we can do our jobs and hopefully one day the need for a bomb squad will go away".

i could not have said it any better myself... amen to that!

Link to comment

Transparent container while may be an option would not help if you ask me. When you see something suspect from a distance and the idea of a bomb is what you have in mind then you won't get close to it to see if it's really a bomb. I remember a movie scene where they used a transparent container.

 

This will have to stop showing in the news or the next bomb guy will have the idea to buy an official geocaching sticker and place it on the bomb container.

 

There is no real solution here... the most simplist container could be a bomb as so the next container you will look at could also be.

 

I totally agree. If that ever happens (geez I hope it doesn't) that is going to be just devastating for Geocaching. People just really need to use common sense.

Link to comment

Not all of the bomb squads blow them up:

 

Texas Bomb Scare

 

There's definitely some education needed with law enforcement agencies...and geocachers being mindful of where they're placing caches and how it may look if someone stumbles upon it.

Cool your cops have cool toys (X-Ray) that ours don't have, we have to wait for the robot to be flown in from one of a few central centres, not in this province. Please remember our military uses SeaKing (most in use since the 1950's) and older choppers and those things are the way the robot flies to our area :) We are generally lucky if our police (RCMP) even have a police dog unit available within a few hours drive.

 

Actually, they have a robot with X-ray in Ottawa. However, the last person to replace the cache kind of wedged it in there, so they couldn't extract it safely for X-ray. It was decided by the site commander to just blast it with the water cannon and be done with it.

 

The site commander also said that if he could have seen inside it (with X-ray or because the container was transparent), he wouldn't have blasted it. However, it was an unknown package on a transitway bridge and couldn't be safely pulled out, so it got the cannon.

 

If you assume it wasn't blasted, OC Transpo would have removed it anyway.

Edited by geoSquid
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