Array of school backpacks leads to evacuation

NEWTON -- An incident that forced the evacuation of a Newton North High School parking lot early yesterday was either a hoax or a publicity stunt, city officials said. But the teenage founder of the website advertised on four suspicious-looking backpacks found there denied involvement.

A Newton North staff member called police about 6:30 a.m. after spotting three black nylon drawstring backpacks hanging from trees on the campus and another hanging on a fence, officials said. State Police bomb squad technicians took down the backpacks using a robot and discovered that they were filled with shredded newspaper and that they bore the logo of a social networking website called b4class.com.

Officials called the incident reminiscent of a publicity stunt that threw Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville into turmoil in January. Roads and bridges were shut down as authorities investigated 38 small light-up devices that turned out to be part of a guerrilla advertising campaign for a Cartoon Network show.

"It just strikes me as foolish behavior," Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Young said.

The website's founder, an 18-year-old senior at North Quincy High School, insisted yesterday that she had nothing to do with the incident at Newton North.

Sofia Loginova, who said she has given away about 2,000 of the promotional backpacks, said she heard about the incident when she was met at her school yesterday and questioned by a Quincy police officer. Loginova said she is horrified that officials are comparing the incident to the highly publicized stunt in January.

"I don't want to be compared with that [the Cartoon Network stunt], and it's not at all how I want my site to be seen," she said.

Loginova said her site, which opened Wednesday, has about 500 users. She said she does not have outside marketing help.