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To: Cicero; All

UPDATE from CBS Boston

Two people have been arrested in connection with a daylong bomb scare on a Greyhound bus in Portsmouth, N.H.

John Smolens of Lewiston, Maine was tasered and charged with resisting arrest after police say he refused to obey orders from the SWAT team during the evacuation Thursday.

Calvin Segar of Brooklyn, New York was charged with two counts of obstruction for lying to authorities.

Both will be arraigned in Portsmouth Friday afternoon.

The bomb scare began Thursday morning when a passenger overheard a man speaking a foreign language on a cell phone, police said.

The passenger then heard someone on the other end of the phone say — in English — that there was a bomb on board and decided to call 911, authorities said.

The 911 call was made around 11:15 a.m., prompting authorities to evacuate buildings and streets and to surround the bus with a bomb squad and sharpshooters.

16 passengers and the driver got off safely, but the man whose phone conversation prompted the scare refused to leave.

Portsmouth Police Chief David Ferland said that man was from Burundi, Africa and was too frightened.

“I do not know the reasons why he was nervous with police,” Ferland said.

“He comes from a different country. We are trained to understand that people react differently.”

Ferland would not reveal his name, but he told reporters at a late morning news conference that the man is legally allowed in be in the United States and that part of the problem was a language barrier because he spoke Swahili.

The bus was searched and no bomb or weapons were found.

“It was not a terrorist-related event,” Ferland said.


13 posted on 05/07/2010 10:09:49 AM PDT by raccoonradio
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To: raccoonradio

Maybe Muslim, maybe not. The Muslim population in Burundi is probably around 10%, although some say less.


14 posted on 05/07/2010 11:58:15 AM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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