{"id":1243,"date":"2006-07-03T09:46:29","date_gmt":"2006-07-03T17:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/07\/balloon_animal_makers_are_the_real_terrorists.html"},"modified":"2008-01-24T19:14:31","modified_gmt":"2008-01-25T00:14:31","slug":"balloon_animal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/07\/balloon_animal.html","title":{"rendered":"Balloon Animal Makers Are The Real Terrorists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Al Qaeda starts dressing in ridiculous tie-dye T-shirts and making balloon animals I&#8217;ll admit that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nypost.com\/news\/regionalnews\/terror_balloon_bust_is_a_bruiser_regionalnews_heather_gilmore.htm\">this would seem like a prudent measure<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>A Manhattan face-painter and balloon-animal maker said overzealous cops tackled him off his bike, shoved two guns to his head and threw him in the slammer for more than four hours &#8212; all because his misplaced balloon pump looked like a bomb.<\/p>\n<p>Alexander &#8220;Sasha&#8221; Alhovsky said the takedown occurred in front of dozens of horrified children on Thursday at about 5:30 p.m. outside an Upper East Side playground.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They thought I was a terrorist,&#8221; Alhovsky, 36, said yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>The previous Sunday, Alhovsky said, he left a rainbow-striped balloon pump in a Starbucks on 66th Street and First Avenue &#8212; and a worker called cops.<\/p>\n<p>Four days later, he was cycling home from Central Park &#8212; where he&#8217;s plied his trade outside the zoo entrance for 15 years &#8212; when about eight cops jumped on him from behind, he claimed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was a gun in my face and another on the back of my neck,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They were screaming, &#8216;Get off your f&#8212;ing bike, you f&#8212;&#8216; . . . They were dragging me around.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Alhovsky was taken to the 19th Precinct station house.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, a plainclothes officer came into the room with a photo of the $850 electric air pump he had purchased online.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I told them what I did for a living and that it was just a pump,&#8221; he said. Alhovsky was then released.<\/p>\n<p>Alhovsky said he wants an apology from cops.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It appears the officers took prudent steps to handle what may have been a dangerous situation,&#8221; Police Chief Michael Collins said in a written statement.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Al Qaeda starts dressing in ridiculous tie-dye T-shirts and making balloon animals I&#8217;ll admit that this would seem like a prudent measure: A Manhattan face-painter and balloon-animal maker said overzealous cops tackled him off his bike, shoved two guns to his head and threw him in the slammer for more than four hours &#8212; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-followed_by_a_perplexed_stroke_of_the_chin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}