Alewife station closed for 'police activity?'

does anyone know anything about this? it's on the T's website:

Red:


There is bus shuttle service between Alewife and Davis Stations due to police activity at Alewife Station. Alewife Station is closed.

This sounds potentialy serious, especially at 5:00 on a workday. A lot of commuters are going to be pretty angry if it's for something silly.

"Police activity", in my experience, is often a code word for a suicide.

Ron Newman wrote:"Police activity", in my experience, is often a code word for a suicide.

Wrong. Suspicious package this time.

Yeah, 6pm news had it - a cooler with two(?) bags of an unknown powdery substance. They evacuated the station, Bertucci's, and the day care. The station was still closed at 6pm.

And earlier today there was a powder found on a bus at Ashmont prompting an evac and hazmat there as well. I think they identified that powder (I heard it on the radio on the way home) but I don't remember what - didn't sound too friendly though.

They should have just removed the bag from the station and taken it outdoors to the nearby open field. No reason at all to close the station for something as trivial as this.

Ron Newman wrote:They should have just removed the bag from the station and taken it outdoors to the nearby open field. No reason at all to close the station for something as trivial as this.

Sure, why not just bring potentially hazardous chemicals outside?

I was dropping a friend off at the station around 4p and the fire dept had the station closed and they were laying out fire line into the station.

Ron Newman wrote:They should have just removed the bag from the station and taken it outdoors to the nearby open field. No reason at all to close the station for something as trivial as this.

How about moving it to your house to work on it there? That's about as stupid of a place as the one you are suggesting.

Ever had to deal with a situation like that first hand? I have. Did it back in high school on simulations. You DO NOT move it until you know exactly what you are dealing with and certainly DO NOT move it to a place where it can endanger a major water supply and an environmentally sensitive area. On top of that there are 1000s of people living not too far away who would have to be evacuated as well as they would be in danger.


Too bad if people were convenienced, but safety takes precident over convenience.

Ron: with all due respect, unidentified packages cannot be treated in a trivial manner. Your comment is going to invite some interesting adjectives from posted messages!

I shall not comment however because Christmas is coming and I want Santa to know I can be good

SnoozerZ49 wrote:Ron: with all due respect, unidentified packages cannot be treated in a trivial manner. Your comment is going to invite some interesting adjectives from posted messages!

I know, especially after 11SEP01 and then the Madrid 3-1-1 massacres, you just cannot treat an abandoned bag or stuff like that as you did 10 years ago, It may be going outrageous, although tearfully, you can't trust anyone or aything nowadays, obviously after 11SEP01.

::edit::
oh, I misread this the first time, apparantly there was a suicide the day before this at alewife too.

http://www2.townonline.com/cambridge/lo ... eid=128570

So, what EXACTLY happened at Alewife yesterday? I could not find any accounts at Boston.com or anywhere else...

They found a small styrofoam cooler or box with some plastic bags in it, according to the Cambridge FD last night on the news. Most likely trash left behind somewhere, but this day in age you can't be too careful with it.

Of all the safety and security announcements by the T, the one about taking all your stuff with you is probably the most important. In the old days, a box or bag left behind was just extra trash to clean up. Now it triggers a visit from the bomb squad, and shuts down service for a couple hours.

A side note: since 9/11, I've often read about these things happening in other cities, but they don't seem to have become regular occurances in Boston (i.e., stations being shut down for bomb scares). Let's hope this doesn't change...

Part of the problem is that Mass general law dictates that the fire department is in charge of all hazardous materials incidents. Fire departments tend to make more dramatic and unnecessary closure decisions because they do not answer to the general public nor are they held to the same standard as other public agencies. An example of this was the leak in the tank car near the BET when half the north shore transit system was shut down and no one questioned it. The MBTA police take into account the disruption to the public when making critical decisions concerning the transit system, the Cambridge Fire Department does not.

TPR37777 wrote:Part of the problem is that Mass general law dictates that the fire department is in charge of all hazardous materials incidents. Fire departments tend to make more dramatic and unnecessary closure decisions because they do not answer to the general public nor are they held to the same standard as other public agencies. An example of this was the leak in the tank car near the BET when half the north shore transit system was shut down and no one questioned it. The MBTA police take into account the disruption to the public when making critical decisions concerning the transit system, the Cambridge Fire Department does not.

It's my understanding that the leak in the BET tank car was serious/dangerous enough to warrant the closures that resulted given the proximity of the Orange Line and commuter rail to where the tank car was located. Also, I think fire departments are more concerned with playing a potentially dangerous situation safe, than public opinion.