Another Midland Geocaching Bomb Scare

[TLien11]

Many have by now heard of another recent bomb scare in Midland related to geocaching.

http://www.mywesttexas.com/articles/2010/01/08/news/top_stories/academy_sports_midland_geotagging_geocaching_geocache.txt

In this case, a geocacher was seen replacing a cache he had found, and those who saw him called the bomb squad.  Many cachers watching the event in the news wondered how the Midland PD could be taken in again after the previous bomb scare out at the CEED complex. 

Last night I spoke with the MPD bomb squad commander.  They are more plugged in than many of us would have guessed to geocaching.  He was well familiar with the geocaching website and the rules for placing caches, and he had actually gone out and found a couple of mine to see what they looked like.  Further, his whole team now has iPhones with the geocaching app to help them know when there is a cache in a particular area.

In the Academy Sports case, they had no choice but to treat it as a bomb.  They didn't have the iPhone apps yet and were unable to access computers to check for caches.  But more importantly, the person with whom they spoke from Academy said, "No, I saw it.  It's a pipe bomb," or words to that effect.

I would like to open up some discussion on how to avoid this happening again.  I'm thinking, for example, if there were a way for some of the more-experienced cachers to offer opinions and suggestions when newer cachers hide caches that could cause problems, such as in very-high-traffic areas like Academy.

Any thoughts?

[1morebar]

In my opinion one of the most important things that can be done is to ask for permission from owner/manager etc., and then allow them to know where it is located.  Yes, that might mean that you are letting a muggle or two know about it, but if there had been another employee or manager there who knew about it this may have been "defused" sooner.

just my two cents

[TLien11]

Yes, I think in this case that would have helped.  This was a fairly-new cache, and the current manager was probably the manager when it was placed.

I suspect the vast majority of "skirt lifters" are not placed with permission.  They are in store or mall parking lots and I think people generally consider those semi-public.  Probably more so when it is a parking lot for a strip mall or grouping of stores so no one store controls the parking lot.

Then another problem comes if you ask a store manager for permission, but he moves on and there is a new store manager who knows nothing about the cache.

[WTXGA Admin (the4defaus)]

When I spoke with the Sgt at the Midland Police about this incident, he told me that the city police are fine with Geocaching and actually pretty knowledgeable.  He said that this instance because such a large issue because "other agencies" like the FBI and other area bomb squads got involved. 

He had a really good point when he told me, if someone reporting a possible bomb or suspicious person at a specific location called the local police, it wouldn't have been an issue.  BUT, when John Q. Public decides to call the FBI or another law enforcement agency outside of the local police... then it gets tricky. 

I spoke with the cacher that got rousted and passed on some legal information from Geocaching's parent company Groundspeak (who were really nice when I called them about this... their lawyer already new about the incident actually).  I haven't heard anything else since then.  Can someone give me an update without jeopardizing any legal proceedings? 

 

[TLien11]

I haven't gotten any updates from the cacher involved, but it concerns me that a person going about a legal activity can end up in legal trouble because someone else thinks they look suspicious and call the police, FBI, or anyone else.  I could get out of my car to walk around and check a tire and have someone think it looked suspicious.  I think the John Q. Public guy is more responsible for the problems in this case than the cacher was.

[T-CUBED]

I so agree with you TL