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Professor's lesson for Brown spurs evacuation of JFK Building

Print | Comments () Posted by Martin Finucane September 9, 2010 04:20 PM

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By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff

Authorities today briefly evacuated the first four floors of the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in downtown Boston when a retired chemistry professor on his way to an appointment in US Senator Scott Brown’s office entered the building with a metal fuel canister attached to wires, police said.

The professor told police that the device was part of an experiment designed to demonstrate what might have caused TWA Flight 800 to explode off Long Island, N.Y. on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 people on board. A report by the National Transportation Safety Board concluded in 2000 that the plane might have crashed after the airplane's center wing fuel tank exploded.

The professor, however, had not advised Brown’s staff that he would bringing the device to his appointment, Daniel Linskey, superintendent in chief of the Boston Police Department, told reporters outside the building.

Building security staff stopped the professor as he approached the metal detectors on the first floor, and were interviewing him this afternoon, Linskey said. The professor, a former faculty member at the University of Massachusetts, had brought the device in a backpack, Linskey said.

“At this point, it looks like a case of bad judgment,” Linskey said, adding that it was particularly bad timing to bring a “sinister-looking device” into a federal building two days before Sept. 11.

Police said they do not plan to charge the professor with any crime.

"It does not appear to be a hazardous device or anything that we need to be concerned about with public safety,” Linskey said, adding that the professor’s name has not been released.