Wow. It's not very often I read about security breaches this atrocious. According to an ABC News story, a contract security officer apparently spotted a package outside the McNamara Federal Building in Detroit, but instead of treating it with caution, he picked it up and brought it inside the building:
"Against all security protocols -- an unattended package should be treated with extreme caution -- he picked up that package and took it inside basically on the premise of 'lost and found' property. And apparently stored it. That was on Feb. 26. On March 18th, last Friday, someone got the idea to x-ray the package. At that point wires were seen... and it turned out to be a bomb."
And this isn't just any commercial building, the McNamara Federal Building houses the FBI, IRS and offices for Sen. Carl Levin. Yes, you read that correctly: The FBI!
According to the article, the bag contained a pipe bomb.
The response? Well, that particular officer was suspended and a special training team will be deployed to Detroit to re-train the building's security personnel on proper protocol. Yeah, I would say that would be a good idea. While this officer certainly broke protocol, I can't imagine he didn't mention this to another officer, right? I'm guessing there's more than one officer protecting this very important federal building and he likely said something to someone else about finding the bag.
There's plenty of finger pointing to do, but I'm just happy I can write a blog about the idiocy of this situation instead of the tragedy.
