Northeastern Meta-bomber vowed to attack BU, MIT; professor recovering from injuries

By adamg on Wed, 09/14/2022 - 9:22am

Live Boston reports that Boston, state and federal bomb squads swarmed local college campuses this morning to check for the sorts of devices that sent a Northeastern professor to the hospital last night after he opened a hardened case with a bomb inside.

The packages, law enforcement sources tell us were hard-shell Pelican cases which did not contain the stereotypical explosive materials but instead were highly pressurized with some unknown type of gas and shrapnel.

Boston Police, firefighters and EMTs responded to Northeastern's Holmes Hall shortly after 7 p.m. yesterday when the bomb went off in the school's virtual-reality department there. The Boston Police bomb squad used a robot and a water cannon to neutralize a second case found there.

The bomber left behind a manifesto complaining about virtual reality, Facbook, Facebook's Metaverse concept of virtual reality and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and vowing to hit BU, MIT and other local colleges.

Neighborhoods:

Fenway

Topics:

Crime

Free tagging:

Northeastern University

Holmes Hall

Boston University

MIT

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Comments

This person should be

By anon
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 9:54am

This person should be prosecuted with the highest possible penalties. I don’t want to hear or see ANY excuses. We have a generation of psychopaths on our hands who have been raised on the internet and lack any concept of reality.

Raised by the Internet? I've

By Deli
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 11:20am

Raised by the Internet? I've never understood people who correlate media and violent acts.

Personally, I blame the post-WWII military-industrial complex, but that's a discussion for another time.

Plenty of psychos before

By anon
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 12:13pm

Plenty of psychos before social media and the internet....you just didn't hear about 24/7.

N O

By deselby
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 6:38pm

There are more psychos now, even in proportion to population growth. Just look at the number of mass shootings.

The Boston Strangler would be a minor story now. Story would not have been worth a feature film.

Y E S

By bostnkid
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 9:57pm

Between June 14, 1962, and January 4, 1964, 13 single women between the ages of 19 and 85 were murdered in the Boston area. Most were sexually assaulted and strangled in their apartments; police believe that one man was the perpetrator.

wikipedia

the boston strangler terrorized the greater boston area for several years in a manner not seen is this area before or since. mass shootings are horrific, terrifying events but they don’t put a whole city on edge for several years. women were afraid to go out in public. i don’t really care about the movie.

A generation of psychopaths??

By RoseMai
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 2:09pm

A generation of psychopaths?? Please. Let's not pretend like other generations don't have an equal share of people who want to do harm to others based on irrational fears or beliefs.

Which generation?

By mg
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 3:04pm

We have no idea what generation this person is part of. Unless the manifesto lists a birth year, we have no way of knowing which of many possible generations they belong to. And as RoseMai wrote above, no generation has a monopoly on people who do harm to others. I was a kid in the 1960s which had its share of bombings, as have every period since then.

Why not both?

By Tim Mc.
Thu, 09/15/2022 - 7:34am

There may not be any greater number of people who are *predisposed* towards conspiracy theories or violence, but the internet sure makes it easier for them to find each other, be found by those who would use them, or find methods and materials for committing violence.

(And I say this as someone who, to some degree, "grew up on the internet".)

Yeah they let the marathon

By P2501
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 3:26pm

Yeah they let the marathon bomber off way too easy.

But you might be surprised to learn that this isn't the first time this has happened! Check out the guy they called "The Unabomber". Don't use the internet to read up on him though, you might become a psychopath

Psychopaths or vipers?

By SamWack
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 4:47pm

"Generation of vipers" is much more evocative, and has the authority of a really first-class ranter:

O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
Matthew 12:34-37

It does sound like Jesus was warning us about spending all day on the Internet, speaking idle words.

Uh ...

By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 6:15pm

The Unibomber would like a word.

Dude was completely off the grid but did the same sort of stuff.

Unabomber

By Kaz
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 6:23pm

I was raised on the internet

By fredly
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 6:34pm

I was raised on the internet and I'm not a violent, extremist putz.

Blame unchecked social upheaval, rampant inequality, total neglect of mental health, and the consistent rewarding of inciteful rhetoric in our political arenas for the violence we're seeing today...not the damn Internet.

Agree

By deselby
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 6:40pm

A sick society

Hoping they will be ok

By lbb
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 10:41am

Hoping that the injured person will be ok.

Our country was founded by settler colonialists, and for a long long time, antisocial (white) people had the option to go somewhere where there weren't a lot of other (white) people. They no longer have that option, and the rest of us are suffering for it.

What are you talking about?

By BostonDog
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 11:11am

Psychopaths and domestic terrorists have always been a thing and will always be a thing. It's not as if this is an American or even a white European thing.

Thankfully they are fairly rare and generally caught quickly, at least in America.

"What's That?"

By John Costello
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 11:50am

"It's a race card. I pulled it out."

"Why did you pull that out?"

"Well, I need to say something about the situation but could not find the right thing to say, so I pulled out the race card and spouted on about general injustice of the past 392 years around these parts even though it really has nothing to do about this particular situation."

On a less insane tangent than stated by our Happy Valley resident above. I have a kid at a school in the Fenway. My kid has friends at other schools in the Fenway. My kid's NU friends were freaking out last night because they are kids and someone set off a bomb. They are scared that we have a Die Hard 3 situation ongoing right now, so let's not spout off about the bad wytepeple until we know a little more about what is going on.

Thanks.

I'm sorry...

By lbb
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 1:25pm

...that you weren't able to follow my thought. In simple terms: yes, psychopaths have always been a thing, but when antisocial people had the option to simply move away from anyone else, their effect was less. Get it now?

Head Of The Charles - October 21 - 23

By John Costello
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 1:30pm

You should enter because it appears you are already trying to row your comment back.

Enter one of the races that goes from the BU up to the Weld Boathouse, but you start out about Boston Light to make sure you row back far enough to even cover your insane comment.

I didn’t find the comment insane

By Bob Leponge
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 2:58pm

I didn’t find the comment insane.

Our country is populated in large part by people who didn’t like the way things were back in the old country. For some that was about economic opportunity; for some it was about not fitting in, in one way or another. We are self-selected in part for our dislike of the established way of doing things and for the strictures of convention. At its best this has made America a bastion of innovation, creativity, willingness to challenge authority, and optimism for change. The dark side is that it also selected for misfits of one sort or another. As long as we had a frontier and westward migration, there was a safety valve: people who didn’t like their neighbors, or the society and culture that their neighbors had created, could pick up and move on. Nowadays, we’re stuck with other, often in closer quarters than some would like. This leads to a level of acting out that might be less pronounced when the option of leaving was more obviously present.

Things haven't changed that much

By BostonDog
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 3:11pm

There hasn't been a real American frontier since Alaska became a state.

If someone wanted to be a hermit and limit contact with the world, that's easy. Plenty of rural land in America (even some in MA) for you to ignore everyone.

It's not clear from the current reporting why the NEU bomber wanted to terrorize Boston universities except for a nebulous dislike of Facebook and virtual reality. To make assumptions of their motivation is waste of time.

For all we know they are a former employee who was fired from that division and is retaliating. Or he could be an 18 year old kid who is mad because he wasn't accepted to any college in Boston.

it is now being reported as a hoax

By bostnkid
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 3:18pm

I'm not sure what that means considering something exploded and someone went to the hospital.

Didn't contain an explosive device

By Ron Newman
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 3:51pm

is what I'm reading, meaning that it didn't have gunpowder, dynamite, TNT, or similar things in it. It *did* have enough compressed gas of some kind to explosively decompress and injure someone, so still something to take seriously. Whoever made it could move on to making more destructive devices if they aren't found and stopped.

Hoax, as in "staged"

By Irma la Douce
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 4:09pm

See Brian's comment below.

Which is recent

By lbb
Thu, 09/15/2022 - 9:55am

There hasn't been a real American frontier since Alaska became a state.

Which is quite recent compared with the country's history. This supports my point rather than detracts from it.

Exactly

By lbb
Thu, 09/15/2022 - 9:54am

As long as we had a frontier and westward migration, there was a safety valve: people who didn’t like their neighbors, or the society and culture that their neighbors had created, could pick up and move on. Nowadays, we’re stuck with other, often in closer quarters than some would like. This leads to a level of acting out that might be less pronounced when the option of leaving was more obviously present.

Exactly. That was my point, not sure why it triggered some people. Deep-seated need to believe in American exceptionalism, maybe? The "we're better than Europe with its ancient quarrels" was a big part of 20th century American psyche, to be sure.

Is that a buzzing noise I hear?

By lbb
Thu, 09/15/2022 - 9:52am

John, you're a toxic damaged person. I hope you get professional help.

Not to mention

By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 6:16pm

That said psychos got a strong reward for their service to the country in anhilating native Americans.

Huh???

By anon
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 11:30am

"Our country was founded by settler colonialists, and for a long long time, antisocial (white) people had the option to go somewhere where there weren't a lot of other (white) people. They no longer have that option, and the rest of us are suffering for it."

I don't see what this has to do with the situation at hand. If the nutcase who planted the bombs had the opportunity to go somewhere remote where there were not many white people he wouldn't have done it? This is a highly conceptual and unrealistic argument that only muddies the water on all sides.

Is your point that if there

By P2501
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 3:32pm

Is your point that if there were "places to go" then these antisocial (white) people would go there instead of blowing things up? Also are you highlighting their race for a reason?

Edit: just saw your other reply. You wish for the days when psychopaths moved away to the deep dark woods and left us normals alone. That's also dumb

You are missing the point

By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 6:17pm

Not only could they get away from society, they could get paid by the scalp for annihilating non-white humans.

And, yes, only white colonists got this deal.

(Also we should start calling Harvard "HU" they would hate it.)

AP: Officials probing whether Northeastern explosion was staged

By brianjdamico
Wed, 09/14/2022 - 4:05pm

BOSTON (AP) — Federal officials are examining whether the employee who reported an explosion at Northeastern University may have lied to investigators and staged the incident, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

Investigators identified inconsistencies in the employee’s statement and became skeptical because his injuries did not match wounds typically consistent with an explosion, said one official.

The officials could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

https://apnews.com/article/explosions-education-ma...