A 16-year-old boy was thrown out of a Pink concert after their “Timebomb tweet” caused a panic at Rod Laver Arena.
The teen was making a reference to Pink’s song “Timebomb” when they tweeted the following message:
“@Pink I’m ready with my Bomb. Time to blow up #RodLaverArena. Bitch.”
Staff members worried about the tweet used the fan’s Twitter profile picture to hunt them down.
Speaking to the Seven Network, the teenager who sent the Timebomb tweet said of the incident:
‘‘They just came up to me and showed a photo and said ‘is this you? I said yeah, because it was my face, and suddenly they just turned me around and grabbed my hands and forced me out the back.’’
After his son was arrested, David King told radio station 3AW that security overreacted to the innocent Timebomb tweet. According to his dad:
“When he wrote that, he didn’t have time to put ‘Timebomb’, you know.”
The boy’s father had to take a three-hour drive to Melbourne in the United Kingdom so he could sort out the incident. After police realized the meaning of the tweet, they became more lenient.
According to Mr. King, police didn’t want to arrest the boy, but arena officials demanded that he be brought up on public nuisance charges. According to Mr. King:
“But they demanded (he) be arrested.”“The policeman said to me, ‘if it was up to me, I would have booted him in the backside and said go home’.”
An arena official says they had no choice but to have the boy arrested in order to ensure the safety of everyone else at the Pink concert .
According to one witness, the Timebomb tweet resulted in 20 security personnel workers approaching the 16-year-old fan.
We are constantly reporting on social media arrests these days, so just remember that a Timebomb tweet without context just seems like a threat.
Do you think arena officials overreacted to the boys innocent Timebomb tweet or do uncertain times call for some drastic measures?