Kids these days have no clue! And their music suks!

Of course my memory is faulty – I was growing up at the time.

I agree that it was probably opportunistic, but I imagine, and would bet money on this, that the fucker who shot the second device into the crowd was enjoying himself his little joke.

I’m in the UK, and I grew up with the IRA blowing the living shit of out of all and sundry in various different ways as a pretty routine feature of the daily news

Yep, me too.

but I don’t ever recall them doing that.

Then either you weren’t paying attention or your memory is faulty. It wasn’t always a case of step 1: detonate device; step 2: wait for response and detonate secondary device though. There were a number of variations on the tactic. Phone in a warning for a particular time & place, but set the bomb close-by or to go off slightly earlier/later. Place a dummy device designed to be spotted and draw the response which is the target of the real, much better hidden, device. Place a real device plus one or more fakes nearby.

Sometimes the goal was to kill or injure more people (most often soldiers or RUC), sometimes it was to cause more delay and disruption as security forces searched for/made safe further devices.

Of course there are significant differences to what the Oakland police officer did here. For example, it’s likely this was an opportunistic act rather than a planned and premeditated one. I sincerely doubt an officer targeted Scott Olsen to draw a group to his aid and then another officer (or the same one) targeted the group that responded.

None of that makes what he/they did any less reprehensible of course.

” the point of writing is usually to get whatever’s in your head into your reader’s head”

Are we really going to have that conversation?

“You weren’t exactly specific, and I’m not psychic.”

I absolutely refuse to be forced to some arbitrary level of specificity a priori. This blog is my writing project, not your technical memo. Indeed, I often write in a way that both demands significant work on the part of the reader and at the same time includes things I know only some people are going to understand because of context. (This does not happen to be an example of that)

Having said that, please note that we are having a conversation. You now know what I mean. I’ve even given you a reference. I may even amend the post slightly. And thanks for pointing out the ambiguity.

Also, the point of writing is usually to get whatever’s in your head into your reader’s head, so if I’ve interpreted you incorrectly, that may not be entirely my fault. You weren’t exactly specific, and I’m not psychic.

Only if you judge what I said in terms of what is in your head instead of mine. What I meant was the trick of getting people to come over to you then attacking a second time.