What kind of person calls in a bomb threat after the Connecticut tragedy? I lived in New York in 2001, and in the shaky days following September 11, a plague of hoax threats and prank calls washed over the city and then spread out over the world. I wrote about it for Salon after I heard about this incident:
The unnecessary evacuation of Grand Central Station began for Tom Petrella of Oren’s Daily Roast at 9.15 a.m. last Thursday when a police officer ran into his store yelling, “Get the fuck out of the terminal. Now!” A few minutes earlier, Petrella realized that something was wrong when a crowd of 50 people surged up the subway stairs next to his coffee bar. At that time of day, he said, people should have been heading down. But the crowd moved up and out, making a sharp U-turn to take a nearby exit onto 42nd Street. Shortly afterward, police officers ran into the terminal to evacuate it. Petrella sent his frightened staff out straightaway, locked up and then joined the huge crowds on the streets outside. The terminal was later closed for the rest of the day. Petrella spoke to MTA police who said someone had placed a package on one of the platforms and immediately run away from it.
Continue at Salon.