“Bomb Voyage” — What does it mean to you?

Published in

Homeland Security

3 min readFeb 5, 2016

A “bomb” is commonly referred to as an explosive weapon and a “voyage” to the common layman is a long journey by air or sea, but what if both words were merged together? Then what? For some, the two words could be referring to the villain who appears at the beginning of the Incredibles movie. It appears this French villain seems like a satirical representation of recent events done throughout the world in extremely poor taste. But what if the events weren’t a satirical representation? Let’s ask the Tsarnaev brothers who used two pressure cooker bombs to conduct a terrorist attack, followed by subsequent related shootings during the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. The bombs exploded about 12 seconds and 210 yards apart, near the marathon’s finish line. The bombs killed three civilians and injured an estimated 264 others.
But others cause the same type of panic, but on a smaller scale. I was in Florida working as a law enforcement officer when Lawrence Lombardi was sentenced to life in prison by a Federal judge for setting off two pipe bombs in at Florida A&M University. No one was injured in either blast. But the bombings, accompanied by racist phone calls, engrossed the school in fear for a month at the beginning of the 1999–2000 school year. The first bomb went off on August 31, 1999, in a restroom at an administration building and the second bombing was in a classroom building. The campus locked up in fear and 400 students left campus soon after the bombings. But authorities and organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center that monitor hate groups said Lombardi had no known ties to terrorist organizations like the Tsarnaev brothers did.

Many of the suspicious package calls received by Law Enforcement turn out not to be a bomb. However, as Security Executives can attest, we do not mind responding to these types of calls. In fact, we appreciate the public calling in suspicious activities to help us do our job. When the public calls in any type of suspicious activity, it helps the public be a part of prevention. As law enforcement officers, we prefer to catch the bad guys prior to the crime being committed instead of afterwards. An example is when a person has their home burglarized. Many times we identify the burglar with fingerprints and have an arrest warrant issued. The burglar is than arrested for the warrant several months later. However, the person who had their home burglarized sometimes never receives the satisfaction of knowing the bad guy was eventually caught. The public is an important part of prevention.

Don’t let anyone get away with a “bomb-voyage.” If you see suspicious activity or packages, please report it to your local police department. If you are experiencing an emergency, please call 911.

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