Denver Bomb Squad Takes Out Toy Robot

An anonymous reader writes "A robot met its end near Coors Field tonight when the Denver Police Department Bomb Squad detonated the 'suspicious object,' bringing to an end the hours-long standoff between police and the approximately eight-inch tall toy. From the article: "'Are you serious?' asked Denver resident Justin Kent, 26, when police stopped him from proceeding down 20th Street. Kent said that he lived just past the closed area, but was told he would have to go around via Park Avenue.'"

It's official

[oldspewey]

The terrorists have won.

Oh no

[mr100percent]

Great, they shot Zerg from Toy Story.

If it's possibly an explosive device tied to a bridge support, why would it be a good idea for the police to detonate it?

Bang for your buck

[mykos]

Spending on anti-terrorism morbidly outstrips spending on terrorism. They fly a couple of planes into a buildings and the third largest country in the world spend over a trillion dollars on war and counter terrorism. As an added bonus, they get to laugh at our ridiculous countermeasures like fondling (or viewing nude) every man, woman, and child who commits suspicious activities like "boarding a plane".

Re:Oh no

[meerling]

Actually it does, that's the whole point. You have a controlled explosion in that it goes off when you want it to, not the bomber. Additionally you have placed barricades and other protective structures to minimize the damage.
If you think about it, how can exposing an explosive to an explosion be expected to not set it off? Just a side note, if you blow up a nuke, you don't get a nuclear explosion, you get a dirty explosion. The reason is simple, to go nuclear it has to be a carefully timed and controlled explosion so the nuclear material reaches critical mass, which is something that won't happen from a blast originating outside it's core. Yes, Hollywood got it wrong about a million times, no big surprise. You ever watch a movie and people are afraid to drop the plastic explosions? I've burned plastic explosives, thrown it around like a ball of putty, and watched someone shoot it with a rifle at close range. It needs another explosion to set it off, dropping it won't do anything except make it splat like putty.
(On a side note, I've been in the vehicle, or within a 100' of around 40 or 50 car wrecks, and not even once has one of them caught fire or exploded. So yeah, Hollywood sucks on the realism score.)

Re:It's official

[Rob the Bold]

The terrorists have won.

Why should they get the credit? It's our idiocy and our tax money that brought us to this state.

Saying "The terrorists have won", is shirking responsibility. This is our fault. We did this.

OK, "We lost. To the terrorists."

That's the point...

[MarcQuadra]

That's the point of 'asymmetric warfare'. We lose if we overreact, and overreacting is our nature. We got played. Hard.

But really, can you see this speech getting you elected to office:

"Sure, a lot of good folks died on 9/11, but we have to be strong. 9/11 is bait, we have to be sure not to walk into the trap, because we have so much more to lose than they can ever hope of gaining. Some are calling for war. War will cost trillions of dollars and thousands more American lives. I've authorized a small team of operatives to act on capturing the perpetrators dead or alive, and I've activated a special diplomatic corps to curry favor with host countries for allowing our teams to work on their soil. First we're going to ask politely, then we'll bribe them, and if that doesn't work, we'll threaten embargo and international action, and finally, we'll use our superior skill and technology to just go ahead and get the job done as cleanly as possible without permission. Hopefully it doesn't come to that."