Author Topic: Midwest Furfest 2014. New Dates December 5-7  (Read 8992 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Shim

  • *
  • Male
  • Posts: 4498
Re: Midwest Furfest 2014. New Dates December 5-7
« Reply #50 on: December 08, 2014, 01:13:51 am »
Alright, here's my story just to give a general idea of what happened.

Last night at around 1:30 AM, a fire alarm went off. We thought it was a drunk guy until we stepped outside the room and found that the entire hotel reeked of chlorine.

Several thousand people evacuated the hotel. Ambulances, firetrucks, and even a news team were already there. We saw people outside the hotel coping with it in a lot of different ways, with most just trying to stay positive. Some weren't taking it nearly as well. Some were crying, one guy punched a dumpster really hard, with a wind-up to it and everything.

We walked over to the Hilton across the street and they were very accommodating to the several-hundred of us looking for warmth. Some people were literally just wearing bathrobes. The head of security opened up a couple of the ballrooms for us to just sit and wait.

At some point, I called my dad and asked if he could drive out and pick us up. We spent the night at my house, then went back. We had a bit of a scare, but things were business as usual Sunday morning. All we can do is take these things in stride and continue on, regardless of the who or why.

The details of the chlorine-bomb are in all the articles.
Just wanted to let you all know my personal experience.

Offline GrayWolf448

  • Hero Member
  • Species: Gray Folf
  • *****
  • Male
  • Posts: 2085
Re: Midwest Furfest 2014. New Dates December 5-7
« Reply #51 on: December 08, 2014, 01:17:57 am »
so we now have people trying to poison others at conventions.... just love it to what extents people go to, to be idiots...

hopefully they find who ever did that.

Offline HazardJackal

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5168
Re: Midwest Furfest 2014. New Dates December 5-7
« Reply #52 on: December 08, 2014, 01:38:44 am »
This makes me sad...  :'(

Offline Rocoro

  • Newbie
  • Species: Dhole
  • Dhole dog. Google it.
  • *
  • Male
  • Posts: 35
Re: Midwest Furfest 2014. New Dates December 5-7
« Reply #53 on: December 10, 2014, 06:34:17 pm »
Despicable. Furry or not, this was bio-sabotage and I hope the Chicago police's investigation can yield good results, maybe even identifying a suspect. If it's a member of the hotel staff or the maintenance crew, the whole hotel could face a monstrous legal battle, regardless of wrongdoings. If it was a guest, God help him.

This should never be tolerated in any hotel.
ROCORO

Offline the lone shadow wolf

  • Hero Member
  • Species: eurasion wolf with a little silver fox
  • dont mind me just telecomuting from the darkness
  • *****
  • Male
  • Posts: 945
Re: Midwest Furfest 2014. New Dates December 5-7
« Reply #54 on: December 20, 2014, 02:06:29 am »
i'd have to say
this is very bad, who ever did this is a real :goldpissed: ....well jerk
i've seen some comments (not alot)
on furry haters on youtube
and some are actually feel bad for us
i mean they hate us, but felt bad when they heard people being hurt from it :'(

but one thing i'm ticked off more then anything else is
its a hotel, were are the camera's
why havent they found the culprit yet >:(
I will see you all soon
in the future :goldgrin:

if you wish to find me elsewere look here
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/theloneshadowwolf/

check out my latest art here V
http://forums.furtopia.org/artwork-techniques-tutorials/the-lone-shadow-wolf-will-improve!/50/

Offline redyoshi49q

  • Species: (*please see above*)
  • Avatar from Dexcat's MFF 2013 Photoshoot
  • *
  • Male
  • Posts: 2071
    • Enigma Cipher (software project)
Re: Midwest Furfest 2014. New Dates December 5-7
« Reply #55 on: December 20, 2014, 03:15:03 am »
but one thing i'm ticked off more then anything else is
its a hotel, were are the camera's

The chlorine container was stashed in one of the stairwells of the hotel.  While it wasn't unmaintained by any stretch, the stairwells at the hotel were primarily there as fire escape routes.  They only saw a degree of use that weekend because of the high demand for elevators at the con; I imagine that for most of the hotel's year of service, the stairwells don't see as much use as they get during conventions.  Since the stairwells are areas of the hotel where most criminal acts are unlikely to take place (and where most criminals are unlikely to flee), it doesn't surprise me that camera coverage in there was lacking.

It's possible that the hotel might change their policy on that in light of recent events.



why havent they found the culprit yet >:(

I'm also curious as to who the culprit is.  Having said that, I can appreciate the mammoth scale of the ordeal that investigators have on their plates.

The convention had around 4,600 officially registered attendees; this number does not include those who might have been ghosting the con (or rather, attending the con without paying for registration).  There was also an entire hotel's worth of staff there, and there were also several nearby hotels in which the perpetrator may have been housed.  The perpetrator, from the standpoint of an investigator that had just begun their task, could have been any one of these people.  While they'd have the atypical luxury of having a list of registered attendees as a starting point, they wouldn't be able to rely entirely on it; again, it's entirely possible that the perpetrator never registered as an attendee.  They'd have to sift through that entire population to figure out who they thought might have been motivated and able to release the chlorine, while adding on anybody that they come to discover was there through what they learn in their investigations.  They'd then have to start narrowing down that list by getting and then verifying alibis.

Unfortunately, they only had Sunday to perform whatever investigation they wanted to do before the attendees left.  I imagine that they had to perform an overnight cram session on furry culture in the handful of hours that they had before the next day's events in order to be able to blend in while asking people questions (if they were undercover) and be fluent in dialogue with conventiongoers (even if they weren't).  Even during Sunday's programming, convention attendees were probably leaving over the course of the day, and by sometime after noon on Monday, the hotel would be entirely cleared of attendees.  If they were to want to interview anybody after that, they'd have to hunt them down.  While the hotel has the names of their guests and the con has the names of registered attendees, this would still be problematic; the con drew people from a wide variety of states as well as from overseas, and the individuals who were together at the con are now spread out once again around the world.  Moreover, if the perpetrator was a ghoster who didn't stay at a con hotel, the investigators would need to figure out another way to locate them.

I don't know exactly how much evidence the investigation has (even presuming that there's been a statement on the subject, it wouldn't surprise me if they kept the forensics' awareness of specific evidence secret in order to trip up the perpetrator).  If they have enough evidence to know that they can successfully attribute someone to the crime once they've been found (for instance, if they have a fingerprint or DNA), then they're probably good once they've honed in on the perpetrator with enough evidence for a warrant.  If they don't have quite that amount of evidence, they'd have to seek out potential evidence of the crime as they continue to investigate their suspect pool.  They'd have to sift through subpoenaed financial records and online communication logs in hopes of being able to find something that would successfully attribute someone with this crime.  If they're not able to do that, then they wouldn't be able to arrest the perpetrator, even if they did manage to identify and find them.


The TL;DR of this is that the whole process is likely to take a *LOOOT* of time.  I suspect that it will probably take at least several months, and it's only been two weeks since the con so far.  The wait is frustrating, but the investigation is by no means a small task.  It's almost certainly going to be a while before we know more.
"Perfect normality is impossible.  Be unique!"
-- redyoshi49q




^ (click) Puzzle game!

Offline Alsek

  • The Fluffy Destroyer of Tasty Fish
  • Species: White Wolf Pup
  • *****
  • Posts: 5234
Re: Midwest Furfest 2014. New Dates December 5-7
« Reply #56 on: December 24, 2014, 11:21:01 am »
It never ceases to amaze me how much people who weren't at the con are infuriated over this while prettymuch everyone who was actually there don't really make a big deal of it...   It happened.  It's horrible that someone would try to hurt people. But even as we were being evacuated and walking through the hotel loby with the fire system going off and con staff yelling for people to exit the building,   most furries in my group and others kept lighthearted about it and stayed very positive.