31 May 2007

Bomb Squad Blows Up Organ Pipe

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Rhode Island News reports that in Pawtucket:

The suspicious-looking object that forced the evacuation of Tolman High School on Thursday wasn’t a pipe bomb — it was part of a pipe organ.

Tolman Principal Frederick W. Silva said yesterday that a couple of students had pried the pipe loose from the school’s circa 1927 pipe organ, which was walled off in a recent renovation of the high school auditorium and forgotten.

Tolman’s 1,300 students were sent home and the state fire marshal’s bomb squad was called in after a teacher spotted the object in a second-floor locker and alerted school officials.

Bomb squad members couldn’t figure out what the object was. They destroyed it as a precaution, applying a small explosive charge.

Because the detonation wasn’t followed by a bigger explosion, officials concluded that the object probably wasn’t a bomb. But because it looked so sinister, Pawtucket police officials asked the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to get involved, handing the fragments over to a BATF agent late Thursday afternoon.

Silva said school officials learned the object was part of Tolman’s decommissioned pipe organ when the two students who took it confessed, saying they had stuck the object in the locker for safekeeping.

Isn’t it marvellous that we have all these public agencies staffed with trained experts and professionals to protect us?

When I read this kind of thing, I inevitably reflect that there was a time when America had high schools with organs which they actually used, and when nincompoops were not empowered and placed in charge of public safety. But we don’t live in that time. Sigh.

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3 Feedbacks on "Bomb Squad Blows Up Organ Pipe"

Tom

So wonderful that those such as yourself have the priviledge to criticize all who serve the nation whilst never placing yourself ever in danger nor ever risking your own skin for another. It is truly a testament to those brave men and women who do so, that those who never shall may cast stones until they are the ones wanting help. They will then cry and beg, only to complain after they are saved.



Orgel

Poor boys! Punished for simple curiousity. If they weren’t going to use that organ, it’s a tragedy that they didn’t sell it or give it to someone who would.



margarida

i went to tolman high (class of 07) and am friends with alot of the local officers there and i just want to say that we never had any smart principals but we do have a very good police force in out city. Its unfortunate they have bad vision :)



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