Terrorist wannabes

In the wake of unimaginable devastation, what motivates someone to phone in a bomb threat?

By Christine Kenneally

Sept. 20, 2001 | The unnecessary evacuation of Grand Central Station began for Tom Petrella of Oren's Daily Roast at 9.15 a.m. last Thursday when a police officer ran into his store yelling, "Get the fuck out of the terminal. Now!" A few minutes earlier, Petrella realized that something was wrong when a crowd of 50 people surged up the subway stairs next to his coffee bar. At that time of day, he said, people should have been heading down. But the crowd moved up and out, making a sharp U-turn to take a nearby exit onto 42nd Street. Shortly afterward, police officers ran into the terminal to evacuate it. Petrella sent his frightened staff out straightaway, locked up and then joined the huge crowds on the streets outside. The terminal was later closed for the rest of the day. Petrella spoke to MTA police who said someone had placed a package on one of the platforms and immediately run away from it. "The motivations of these people," Petrella said, "are beyond comprehension."

The smoke has barely cleared over lower Manhattan, but in addition to incidents like that at Grand Central, confusion is still thick. A week after the attack, many phone lines remain down, while others work intermittently. Still, enough connections are working for the cranks to get through. In a press conference last week, NYPD Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik stated that New York City bomb threats had jumped from an average of seven a day to more than 100. The hoax threats, acts of terror that exploit an already vulnerable population, have hampered rescue and salvage efforts and caused a wave of evacuations that are themselves dangerous.

Professor Robert Ziller, a psychologist at Florida University and a specialist in terrorism, believes that people who make bomb threats fit the terrorist profile with respect to self-esteem. "Like the terrorists, they've almost certainly been disappointed by life; it hasn't met their expectations. Making the calls gives them a sense of power." Dr. James Janik, a forensic psychologist at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center in Chicago, agrees: "People who make crank call bomb threats have a desire for power, but they lack the courage to be public about what they want or need."

In stark contrast to their private desires, the effects of a crank's threats are very public when taken seriously. Indeed, for the callers, the entire point is to witness the ensuing disruption knowing that they were responsible for it. Many hoaxers linger in the vicinity of an evacuation they have caused. "It's similar to arson," said Janik. "Many arsonists get a secret charge from knowing something that no one else knows. While watching the fire trucks and all the flashing lights, they feel very pleased with themselves and proud of their deception. They bask in the commotion."

Arsonists tend not to exhibit other pathological behaviors, says Janik, who suspects that this is also the case for bomb threat hoaxers. It's likely that the crank callers of the last week are not also robbing banks, committing fraud or perpetrating other more frightening crimes. However, in addition to their craving for an effect, such people tend to have trouble meeting their needs for interaction. "Because of this," says Janik, "they may be unsuccessful socially." They can be anxious loners, often less intelligent and less engaged with the world. Says Ziller, "Whereas violent terrorists have above-average intelligence, these people do not."

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