Turner Broadcasting "Regrets" Boston Security Scare

TURNER BROADCASTING "REGRETS" BOSTON SECURITY SCARE
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Jason Szep]
Turner Broadcasting apologized on Wednesday for a marketing campaign that sparked Boston's biggest security scare since the September 11, 2001, attacks -- closing bridges, shutting major roads and putting hundreds of police on alert. The day-long scare began when a suspicious package was found on a steel beam under a bridge in the morning. Police stopped traffic on a major interstate highway north of Boston, cordoned off the area, deployed a bomb squad and blew it up. By afternoon, at least eight other similar suspicious packages were discovered, each triggering a security alert involving emergency crews, federal agents, bomb squads, police and the U.S. Coast Guard. The 'packages' in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger," Turner Broadcasting System Inc., a unit of Time Warner Inc., said in statement. It said the devices were part of an outdoor marketing campaign in 10 American cities for an animated television show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" produced by its Adult Swim brand. They had been in place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. "We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger," said Turner.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2007-02-01T001822Z_01_N31216023_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-BOSTON.xml&WTmodL...

* Suspicious Devices in Boston Turn Out to Be Ad Campaign for Cartoon
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/us/01boston.html

* Boston Livid Over Cartoon network Ad Stunt (Associated Press)
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/02/01/daily.2/