Idiotic police overreaction, verse 7,319
Two members of a running club face felony charges in Connecticut after using flour to outline a running path.
No, really:
Two people who sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare and now face a felony charge.
The sprinkled powder forced hundreds to evacuate an IKEA furniture store Thursday.
Paranoia about terrorism knows no bounds, and neither does the willingness of elected officials to use fear as a political weapon of mass distraction:
"Hares" are given the task of marking a trail to direct runners, throwing in some dead ends and forks as challenges. On Thursday, the Salchows decided to route runners through the massive IKEA parking lot.
Police fielded a call just before 5 p.m. that someone was sprinkling powder on the ground. The store was evacuated and remained closed the rest of the night. The incident prompted a massive response from police in New Haven and surrounding towns.
[...]
"You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know," [Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga] said. "It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We're thankful it wasn't, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out."
Would someone please explain a feasible terrorist plot that would conceivably involve white "powder connected by arrows and chalk?" What is that even supposed to mean? Is it something like "First, light this powder, then follow this arrow and light this other powder," or what?
I'll buy a beer for the first person who can come up with a plausible scenario that would justify the over-reaction.