Another GSU Student Loses Camera Over Pipe Bomb Fears

Another art student at Georgia State University will have to tell his or her professor that their studio project won’t be turned in on time because it was taped to a bridge in Hapeville and mistaken for a pipe bomb.

Several unfortunate GSU students had created solargraphy cameras and placed them around the city to create images involving the Sun’s journey through the sky for a period of three months. Sadly, these homemade long-exposure cameras looked a lot like homemade weapons of mass destruction.

On Monday, a camera which had been taped to the side of the 14th Street Bridge caused a traffic nightmare when police shut down the Downtown Connector and 14th Street for two hours before the bomb squad finally blew up the ”suspicious package.” Georgia State University later admitted that the camera was part of a student art project, and pledged to help remove the cameras left in public places across the city.

Hapeville police knew about the bridge incident and the true nature of the device on Tuesday, when another solargraphy camera was discovered on a pedestrian bridge there, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said. Further simplifying matters, someone had written, “this can is a solargraphy project for my intro to studio class” on the outside of the device.

Nevertheless, this camera had some features the Midtown camera lacked, namely a pair of 3/4” steel pipes flanking the main cylinder and four wires coming out of the top of the contraption, the AJC said. Police decided to play it safe and shut down vehicle and pedestrian traffic in the area, which caused some delays.

Atlanta bomb squad personnel first examined the object from afar with binoculars, then got up close and personal with the camera and determined it was not dangerous. It is likely that the device will be removed from its temporary home, but it was not blown up like the camera on the 14th Street Bridge.

Speaking of the camera on the 14th Street Bridge, an Atlanta police spokesman said on Tuesday that the student who taped the camera to the bridge could be charged with reckless conduct, according to the AJC.