The FBI has certainly put us on high Super Bowl alert, with warnings of terrorists risks including the actions of "self-radicalized individuals" and "attacks on soft targets like subways." And now that alert has shifted to full-on paranoia, with the news that this week, someone stole a bunch of gear that could be conceivably used to pretend to be a BART police officer.
Bay City News reports that the theft went down in a storage room at BART's Concord station, "sometime between 2 p.m. Monday and 10:23 a.m. Tuesday." (It's that level of secure precision that makes me unable to sleep at night, BART, so thanks for that.)
All-in-all, items totaling around $1000 were stolen, including "a BART police jacket, uniform pants, boots, a gas mask, a riot helmet, custom orthotics and a radio battery."
Though BCN says that no weapons were reported stolen, that's of little comfort — we all know it's no problem for bad guys to get their hands on weapons. It's stuff like official uniforms that could be used to infiltrate a supposedly-secured situation that are harder to acquire.
According to BCN, BART realized the stuff had been stolen only after a BART cop "found the door to the storage room propped open, possibly left open by an employee." (Once again, thanks for the nightmares, BART.)
Here's where I could joke around about this sounding like something out of a Die Hard movie, but I'm having a hard time getting my funny up (commenters, I'm sure you can do better, anyway). After days and days of hearing about what a juicy target Super Bowl 50 is, this fleeting wire report makes me exceedingly anxious. Here's hoping that this was nothing more than a stupid, random theft, and that I'm totally overreacting. Maybe these things are just making me paranoid.
Previously: Get Paranoid: FBI Releases List Of Possible Ways Terrorists Could Terrorize The Super Bowl
Day Around The Bay: Get Even More Paranoid About Super Bowl Terrorism!