Suspicious device in Allouez park is part of game

[Astro_D]

In the end, I’d much rather see a cache blown up due to proper precautions taken rather than people potentially getting hurt because of all the improper ones.

It was an unfortunate incident, but maybe it will make cache hiders take a step back and re-evaluate their own hides and what they look like if they were found by someone with no clue about the game. Nah, I didn’t think so….

Hey Brian, when you coming to an astronomy club meeting? You can’t work every meeting night. 🙂

[seldom|seen]

@Firehogs wrote:

1. the container had a string attached to it to pull it out of the tree (looked like a wick perhaps?)

Are you serious? A string that suspended a cache mistaken for a wick? I assume the bomb squad is educated enough to tell what det cord and homemade “wicks” look like. If not, maybe you need to spend some money on educating your people. Secondly, since the year 2000, how many REAL bombs have you guys detonated and did any of them look anything like something a geocacher might place? If every one of my caches of the described size of this cache, without an EXPENSIVE GC.com label, were put under the same illogical assemsement by your Bomb Squad, you’d suddenly have 200 more “bombs” to blow up. I agree 100% percent with gotta_run on this one, the Squad and you, an active geocacher, should have come to the obvious conclusion that this was a cache. It was in the woods, in a tree hole, suspended by a string, had a corresponding location on the website – what more could could possibly need?

And, if you’re telling me it’s for safety because you couldn’t be 100% certain, shouldn’t you, the person in charge, be blowing up every cache you find that isn’t clearly labeled and “looks” like a bomb for you own safety? Can YOU ever be any more than 75% certain that something you find isn’t a bomb, even if it has a sticker on it?

@Firehogs wrote:

I educated the Sheriff Dept, Bomb Squad, Media & fellow cachers the best I could so maybe this could be avoided in the future.

So what happens the next time you get called out to a container that “looks like” a bomb and isn’t labeled “geocache”? Are you going to feel 100% certain it is. I dread the day the first real terrorist plants an ammo can full of explosives in an urban area with a “geocache” label on it. GAME OVER.

[marc_54140]

@-cheeto- wrote:

These discussions ALWAYS get out of hand

Looking back at this thread, there was never a time that things got “out of hand” and I don’t see many “weird” things to point at either.

I spoke to early?

[lone_gunman]

not quite over, but there sure won’t be any allowed inside city limits

[bugsmasher69]

Commen sense seams to be missing from most people now a days. I mean putting the geocache stickers on the containers isnt going to do a bit of good. Just look at the incident I think it was last year in Boston when their bomb squad blew up a suspicious box that was chained to a light pole. Ends up the box was a traffic counting device that the city of Boston had placed there. So no matter what we do to our cache containers it will have no effect until people start using commen sense again.

[K0rpl]

Amen!

[gotta run]

We’ve thought more about this and there are several upsides. It gives the department another item to list when they justify the equipment which, we are told, was purchased with a $750,000.00 grant that needs to be reported back annually as to how the monies are utilized. It gave them some extra training with some Sunday hours thrown in. And it gave the TV news crews something to fill the evening news with on a boring Sunday–fortunately they were able to get their crews on the scene quick enough to capture the removal of the “device.” A win-win for everyone.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[-cheeto-]

A win-win for everyone.

everyone… minus the cache owner and those who had not yet found this particular geocache.

[gotta run]

Boy I would just love to pour more gas on the fire here by quoting an message I received from someone “in the know,” but I have to respect that person’s wishes. Yes even I have some limits…

On the Left Side of the Road...

[cheezehead]

Did anyone else take notice that the “Parks People” didn’t know the cache was there? That there was no permission granted? Common sence?? To the average non-cacheing person, does geocacihng make sence? Jump out of a perfectly good good airplane dosen’t make much sence to me. Or does jumping from a bridge with rubberbands attatched to my legs make much sence. After 9/11 there is so suckh thing as common sence. Who whould ever thought that I could use my box cutter I use at work to hi-jack an airplane. What would prevent some crazy person to make some sort of bomb out of an ammo can? And put stickers all over it? Look at the big picture people. We all play a game that others think is stupid. It really wouldn’t take much of incedent for someone to say that’s it, no more. All those involved were doing there jobs. Plain and simple. If you were in their shoes, how would you react?

[DCexplorer]

If it’s an urban cache, use a clear jar or translucent container, such as a Lock ‘n’ Lock. If it’s in the middle of nowhere, use a properly labeled ammo can.

[-cheeto-]

Did anyone else take notice that the “Parks People” didn’t know the cache was there?

If this is indeed true, then this is the only part of the whole equation we should look back on in hindsight as potentially causing this particular incident and can work to make this better for the next time someone reports a geocache (device?) as “suspicious”.

Watching the news article and hearing it directly from Firehog’s lips – they did check into whether permission was granted to place this cache. None was found. Hearing “no permission” on the news does not make any of us geocachers proud of our hobby.

There’s not a published policy on geocaching that I can find on the Village of Allouez website (probably is the case for many small towns and villages and even some larger cities across Wisconsin). There is however a phone number for the park & rec dept listed.

We can discuss politics, labeling containers, post 9/11 hysteria, common sense, & what a bomb looks like til were blue in the face but what should be taken away from this is getting permission will help prevent incidents like this. The future of this hobby is in building great relationships with our local land managers. The last thing we want is for a village like Allouez to respond to an incident like this with a geocaching policy with the words ban or not allowed in it.

-cheeto-

[gotta run]

On the Left Side of the Road...

[seldom|seen]

@cheezehead wrote:

After 9/11 there is so such thing as common sense. Who whould ever thought that I could use my box cutter I use at work to hi-jack an airplane.

Thanks for the paranoia. This is why plastic containers in trees are getting blown up. Dial back the fear factor people. Not every person lingering in a park is a pedophile and not ever plastic container with camo duct tape on it is a bomb. Yes, there is still common sense. And there should have been enough on the day of this event for it to prevail.

What would prevent some crazy person to make some sort of bomb out of an ammo can? And put stickers all over it?

Nothing, and when it happens, this sport with come to an abrupt halt. But in the meantime, that doesn’t mean that we need to treat every cache called “suspicious” like a bomb until proven that it isn’t. Some small measure of common sense, one that says Pipe Bombs are made of metal pipe (shrapnel), typically have a detonation cap and a wire to transmit a charge from a trigger source, and are placed in places where they might significantly damage people or property. None of these applied in this case. Seriously when was the last time ANY bomb squad has found a homemade pipe bomb with a “wick” in Wisconsin?

Look at the big picture people. We all play a game that others think is stupid. It really wouldn’t take much of incident for someone to say that’s it, no more. All those involved were doing there jobs. Plain and simple. If you were in their shoes, how would you react?

I would have said, “hey guys, this is obviously a geocache, go home”, particularly if I had 200 solves under my belt. Let me be clear, if I got called on a real chunk of pipe with a wire or det cord sticking out of it placed under a bench downtown, then yes I would have done exactly what they did. And, I will admit that of the 800+ caches that I’ve found, maybe a half dozen could be labeled “suspicious” and would warrant this call to public safety, but I think the driving force here is that once a Bomb Squad is called to any scene, there’s a good chance something will get blown up to justify the need for a bomb squad in the first place. Enter geocaching.

Here are my questions to Firehog:

How many REAL bombs has the bomb squad detonated since 2000?
How many homemade bombs have been found in Alluez?
How many times has the bomb squad been called to investigate a suspicious container and gone home without destroying that container?
How many detonations of geocaches have there been since 2000 and how many detonations of non-geocaches have there been in Wisconsin?

@-cheeto- wrote:

We can discuss politics, labeling containers, post 9/11 hysteria, common sense, & what a bomb looks like til were blue in the face but what should be taken away from this is getting permission will help prevent incidents like this. The future of this hobby is in building great relationships with our local land managers. The last thing we want is for a village like Allouez to respond to an incident like this with a geocaching policy with the words ban or not allowed in it.

-cheeto-

Permission or not, caches will continue to be subject to over-reaction. If you recall the last “suspicious” container blown up WAS placed with permission, permission from a Fire Chief if I recall correctly, and when that person happened to be unavailable that day, the container was subsequently blown up. No amount of “proper labeling”, “permission granting” or indeed “common sense” will prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t do all these things, perhaps it will help in some small measure. The OBVIOUS challenge here, and what should be a future course of action of the BOD, is to EDUCATE Bomb Squads, Fire Departments and Police Departments about the sport by showing them the website – the magnitude and location of cache placements, a sampling of typical containers and providing them ALL with a number of CONTACT numbers for Wisconsin Reviewers who can immediately identify and verify where a cache is supposed to be placed and what it is supposed to look like.
That WILL go a long way to prevent these incidents from occurring.

[cheezehead]

All it takes is one. One misplaced breifcase or thermos bottle. There is a list of “What if’s ?” that can be made. I’m sorry, but that’s the age we live in now. Like ir ot not.

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