An All-Nighter at Work Followed by a Terrorism Threat Scare

We had too much excitement at work pulling an all-nighter. Then when we thought we could go home and sleep, there was a terrorism threat at our building. An stranger placed some threatening packets mentioning anthrax and terrorism.

Fortunately, one of the employees saw this suspicious person and alarmed the rest of us. As we came out and saw him, the culprit took off. Five KRD engineers chased after the culprit, splitting up to not loose him without fear of their own safety while the others called the police and took photos of the scene.

Within minutes several police cars lined up outside the KRD office. Other police cars raced looking for this man. After a long chase in downtown San Jose and almost losing him a couple of times, a KRD engineer caught him and handed him over to the police. The police arrested the suspect and he confessed leading the police to more packets he left at our office we didn’t know about. It seems he was not a real terrorist, but just some disturbed person. What a night!

The full story, photos and videos¹ are below.

Knight Ridder is an enjoyable place to work. The employees are diverse, talented, hardworking, friendly and fun! No wonder I’ve been here for almost 8 years.

On this Friday night/Saturday morning, many folks from the Knight Ridder Digital Technology, Product and other departments happily stayed at work late hours to ensure that a data center migration project went successfully. As you can see, besides working hard that night, they also had a lot of fun.

Photographs

Click here to see the photos on my photos.rajiv.com site (Many of the photos here show folks having fun, but they worked very hard too.)

Video Clips

(Note: The movies may take 2 to 3 minutes to download even on broadband connections. I will move them to a streaming video site in the future.)

• Sharon demonstrates Kung-Fu. Moral: Do not mess with the CTO.
  http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Frajiv%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss&file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F549563&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf
• Peaceful engineers would rather fight Kung-Fu virtually
  http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Frajiv%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss&file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F549567&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf
• They are enjoying Tekken Tag Tournament during a break
  http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Frajiv%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss&file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F549569&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf
• They play hard too
  http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Frajiv%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss&file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F549572&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf
• But Bob Hucker will not take a break from work. That’s our Bob 🙂
  http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Frajiv%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss&file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F549577&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf
• Wayne Weber can’t take a break right now either
  http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Frajiv%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss&file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F549578&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf
• Finally caught camera-shy Patrick Carter on video. That’s our Patrick 🙂
  http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Frajiv%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss&file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F549582&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf
• Some Laughter and Conversations
  http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Frajiv%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss&file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F549591&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf

Police Investigating

• Police walking towards the materials left by the culprit
  http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Frajiv%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss&file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F549314&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf
• Police photographing the materials left by the culprit
  http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Frajiv%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss&file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F549327&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf

I was there that night to provide moral support, food, and entertainment. These photo and videos were posted online while the work was going on. I work for a news media company after all 🙂

1. Update: videos moved to http://rajiv.blip.tv/ on 2007-12-15 [↩]