Airport security to MIT student: Are you f*****g serious?

Add this to your list of Things To Not Wear Into An Airport:

“a glowing device with wires coming out of it.”

starBut that was exactly what Star Simpson, an electrical engineering student at MIT, went ahead and did on Friday, getting herself arrested and causing a bomb scare in the process. She walked straight into Logan International Airport (some context: several of the hijackers on 9/11 also boarded their flights at Logan) at 8 a.m. wearing said “glowing” device, which she called a “piece of art,” according to the Boston Globe.

After not responding to questions from an airport employee, Simpson attempted to leave the terminal. Several employees fled the building when they saw her doing this. She was quickly surrounded by cops with machine guns, who almost killed her, according to Major Scott Pare of the state police.

“Thankfully, because she followed our instructions, she ended up in our cell instead of a morgue.”

The DA prosecuting the case didn’t have any sympathy for her either; she said Simpson totally disregarded the situation she would create with the device “in an airport, post-9/11.” Which, I believe, makes sense.

And she’s not done making mistakes yet: here’s the kicker. She was also found with 6 ounces of Play-Doh, which many of us may recall fondly from our childhoods. But in an airport, Play-Doh is no longer a fun, moldable putty that smells weird. It could potentially be plastic explosives, especially to high-strung airport security guards.

The Smoking Gun is reporting that she describes herself as someone who loves “crazy ideas.” Yup, that sounds about right.

But while the mainstream press seems to have condemned her for her admittedly poorly-thought-out actions, MIT’s campus newspaper, The Tech, is more on her side. (She was a Tech staff photographer for awhile, however.) Their article described the device as only a collection of green LEDs in the shape of a star (awww) attached to a battery. It doesn’t sound nearly as bad when you know that it was a happy shape.

In a statement, MIT called her actions “reckless” and something that could “understandably create alarm.” Although to be fair, she is an electrical engineering student. They could have helped her out and told the police it was a class project or something. Show a little solidarity, MIT.

The moral of this story: MIT students + wearable, bomb-like art + airports = very bad idea.