Brooke Hoyer
FALSE ALARM AT OU
Oops ... This bike wasn't a pipe bomb
Friday, March 03, 2006
Jim Phillips
FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The Hot Issue
* Did the owner commit a crime of inducing panic when he put a sticker
on his bicycle from the band named This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb?
GHOSTMEAT RECORDS
The Florida folk-punk trio This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb in performance.
ATHENS, Ohio
Ohio University police need to brush up on their obscure folk-punk bands.
An OU officer on patrol saw a bike in a busy area of campus early yesterday
that sported a sticker reading, This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb.
Buildings were shut down. The Columbus Division of Fire's bomb squad drove
down to investigate. Authorities used a high-powered water spray on the
bike, and then pried it apart with a hydraulic device.
Hours later, police learned that the sticker referred to the Pensacola,
Fla., band This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb and had nothing to do with the bike's
contents.
The ordeal not only cost graduate student Patrick K. Hanlin his bike, but
also earned him a misdemeanor charge of inducing panic.
The 28-year-old declined to comment yesterday.
The officer found the bike about 5:30 a.m. outside a campus snack shop.
Hanlin later identified himself as the owner of the bike -- what was left of
it, anyway -- and explained what the sticker meant.
Despite his cooperation, OU spokesman Jack Jeffery said yesterday afternoon
that the student was charged criminally.
At a news conference shortly after the all-clear was announced, Dean of
Students Terry Hogan said the sticker was benign. The concern was that it
was on a bike.
So if it had been stuck on a telephone pole, none of this would have
happened?
"I think that's probably right," Hogan said.
Fire officials cordoned off a large section of campus and closed down four
buildings while they investigated. It took them three hours to determine the
bike was not set to explode.
Hogan said the bike was in a fairly high-traffic area of campus, but the
buildings affected had not yet opened for business when it was found.
"I think the response was an appropriate one," Hogan said.
OU President Roderick McDavis agreed.
"We don't take this as a joke," he said.
Sophomore Mike Fisher, who lives in a dorm less than 50 yards from the site
of the incident, said students weren't told what was going on yesterday
morning. But he doesn't blame Hanlin for what happened.
"Honestly, I just think it's the cops being ignorant and taking things so
literally," Fisher said.
Hogan, in a news release, encouraged other OU students and fans of the band
not to display the band's name in a way that could lead to safety concerns.
The band's name prompted police in Austin, Texas, to detain a woman who had
the same sticker on her bike at a peace rally in 2001. She was released
after officers verified that the band exists.
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