We know you can never be too careful in these crazy times we live in, but the enormity of the reaction yesterday to an abandoned backpack near Civic Center -- that apparently no one bothered even to open? -- strikes us a bit, in hindsight, like an overreaction. The Chron informs us that 45-year-old Garfield Smith allegedly told some workers at a flower shop at 499 Polk that the backpack he was dropping off there was "set to explode." Riddle us this: Would a successful terrorist have been quite so brazen or forthcoming with his warnings?

Cue the bomb squad, the cute robot, the whole bit. They actually detonated the backpack with their own explosive, even though it contained no bomb. Smith was booked on suspicion of terrorist threats and making a false report of a bomb. Sounds like just an average exchange with a Tenderloin schizophrenic gone horribly wrong, if you ask us. But sure, never can be too careful.