A geocache. Photo: Daniel Catt CC-BY-SA-2.0
A suspect device, the discovery of which paralysed a Yorkshire town centre for three hours, was blown up by the Army – and found to be a geocache.
A cafe owner tipped off police after spotting a man placing a container under a flower box in Wetherby last Friday.
West Yorkshire Police sealed off the area and a bomb disposal crew from the Royal Logistic Corps was called to deal with the object.
A controlled explosion set off by an Army robot left pieces of the plastic box and its contents scattered across the street. Residents and business occupiers were allowed to return after the three-hour evacuation.
Geocaching, where participants use Global Positioning System devices to hunt down the plastic boxes containing a log book and often small trinkets, has grown in popularity over recent years and many of the caches are located in rural areas throughout Britain.
Police have questioned the wisdom of placing the boxes in urban areas in a time of heightened tension over terrorism attacks. The Home Office’s official current threat from international terrorism is rated severe, meaning a terrorist attack is highly likely.
Chief Inspector Mick Hunter of West Yorkshire Police told the BBC: “In placing the caches, what I would say is, please apply some commonsense to where you put them.”
For anyone considering placing a geocache in an urban location, he added: “If you feel as though you have to do that, then perhaps contact the police let us know where it is, give us a description and perhaps a picture and a contact number would be very useful.”
MacKenzie Barker
06 July 2011http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=86100b49-e6b0-4957-a9d2-1dd080b5a529&log=y&decrypt=
More info here. The police are really at fault here. Geocaching had been around for some time and there are 1000's in the UK
the box clearly says geocache on the label.
Howard Taylor
06 July 2011When a suspicious package is discovered, do you really want the police to approach it, read the label, look it up on the internet before deciding to take action?
With the current security assessment being SEVERE it seems stupid to say the least to be planting a package anywere that could be concieved as a threat to the general public.
All credit to the police for taking prompt action on what could easily have been a risk to life.
Ian Jones
06 July 2011I couldn't agree more. The idiot police had everything explained to them, obviously by the cacher (who disgustingly now has a criminal record for causing a public nuisance-personally I would charge the cafe owner), and also by the cache owner who went to the scene to try to explain what the cache was.
Clearly the police were too busy trying to look important and scary with their bomb squad mates, to loose face and admit they'd totally dekcuf up. All they had to do was check a few details of the cache location on the web, and let the guy retrieve it.
What if this was a family, or just dad and kids like many cachers are? Just how moronic do you have to be to work for the police nowadays...
j
paul
06 July 2011One if this was a bomb
that size under a planter full of soil then you would have to be the worst terrorist ever the soil would absorb the force of the blast and you would get sprinkled with soil
and who the hell would want to blow up a poxy cafe in a small town not really a high value target.
If the police had looked on www.geocaching.com while there units were responding they would have seen a cache at that exact spot with contact details and a clue " under planter" sort of gives it away no detective required.
there 75000 caches in Britain all on the web site so why would the police waste time trying to keep there own up to-date log?
The London police know all about geocaching so why has this information not been passed to all police forces?
This also brings in thousands of tourists York has loads of caches I myself have had a weekend up there to find some of them.
Do we tell tourists its against the law in Britain to geocache? you may get a caution? maybe we need to inform all other countries so they don't come to cache in the uk?
or do we just give criminal records to our own, sounds about right.
interfaceimages
06 July 2011I think we have to recognise that what seems like a fun activity can be misunderstood by those who do not share that interest or even worse some people may exploit a simple game for evil purpose.
The police were right to be suspicious but perhaps could have listened more to the explanations of the cacher & owner and checked out the story.
If the cache was on the cafe premises or close by a responsible cacher would seek permission to place it there and this would have avoided this debacle plus the cafe owner might had a few extra customers.
I think we need to see both points of view here.
tenebrus
07 July 2011@interfaceimages re:"I think we need to see both points of view here."
Thank you. It seems that way too many folks pick one side of an argument and dig in. Yours are trulÿ words to live by.
Ian Jones
07 July 2011"Putting your head in a food mixer is a bad idea."
"Putting your head in a food mixer is a good idea."
-go on then tenebrus can you see both points of view here?
Are you prepared to live by both points of view?
If something is ludicrous, it is ludicrous, not in a quantum state of both ludicrous and simultaneously not ludicrous.
interfaceimages
07 July 2011I have now watched several reports of the incident most of which are reasonably balanced. I was particulary struck by the Geocaching person who suggested that a briefing of police forces about GCing would be a good idea. We will make no progress by knocking the services that help protect communities - some of them are probably cachers - it will be far better to educate them.
The reports went a long way to explain what caching is about in a non-critical way with mention of family involvement. This can only be a good thing.
I think we need to rebuild the reputation of caching in the eyes of the public to avoid a knee jerk reaction by those who make laws to restrict the substantial freedoms that allow us to enjoy our activity.
Let us all work to do this.
Trevor T
10 July 2011Other geocaches associated with bomb scares are listed at:
http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=909c9502-796e-442f-aa8f-b71be68a772b