Remember earlier this month when Ohio University campus police went all “homeland security” on a bicycle that displayed the sticker “This Bike is a Pipe Bomb”?
College officials in Athens say they'll reimburse the owner for the bike that was first sprayed with high pressure hoses then ripped apart by hydraulic cutters known as the jaws of life. The owner, grad student Patrick Hanlin, could get between $800 and $1,000 to replace the Cannondale T700, a touring bicycle.
The bizarre incident started the morning of March 2 when a campus cop saw the bicycle with the sticker “This Bike is a Pipe Bomb” locked up outside a campus restaurant. He didn't know, and neither did anyone else, that the sticker came from a Florida punk rock band of the same name.
Police proceeded to cordon off the area, close nearby buildings and call in the bomb squad from Columbus, a good hour to an hour and a half away. The bomb squad sprayed the bike with high pressure hoses, dismantled it with hydraulic metal cutters and concluded the sticker was false; it was a bike and not a pipe bomb.
When owner, Hanlin, came forward he was slapped with misdemeanor inducing panic, a charge that was later dropped.
The OU Post says he sent a letter to the dean of students: “It was a good bike … that cost nearly $1,000 when I bought it in '99.”
The legal affairs department is assessing a reimbursement. The Cannondale T700 is no longer made; a closely similar Cannondale T800 costs about $1,400 new, Hanlin said.
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