BBC - Police Respond to The Onion's Capitol Hostage Spoof

The Onion often creates the most edgy humor, especially political humor, on the web. Some of their work is so close to reality, but more twisted, that it makes people uncomfortable. And now it has made Capital Police uncomfortable enough to investigate their latest spoof in which Congress, led by John Boehner, takes America's children hostage and demands $12 trillion in ransom.

I'm sure you see the message in that scenario. Well, the Capital Police do not have a good sense of humor it seems, since they are investigating the two stories and series of live Tweets posted by The Onion yesterday.

Even the BBC is reporting on this nonsense story.

Police respond to Onion's Capitol hostage spoof

The Onion's fake story follows a standoff in Congress over a spending bill to avert government shutdown


US police are investigating tweets by a satirical news website about a fake security alert at Washington DC's Capitol building.


The Onion said on its Twitter account that "screams and gunfire" had been heard inside the Capitol. It later said schoolchildren had been taken hostage.


Capitol Police said there was "no credibility to these stories", and that the security situation was "normal".


The Onion told the BBC that its Twitter account had not been hacked.


The website posted a tweet on Thursday morning which said: "BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building."


It later posted another tweet promoting a spoof news article, headlinedCongress Takes Group Of Schoolchildren Hostage.


In one of a series of tweets that followed, it said Congress was demanding a $12tn (£7.7tn) ransom "or all the kids die".

Read the whole article.

Here are the two main stories posted by The Onion (although I think the Twitter posts is what really got them into trouble).

Congress Takes Group Of Schoolchildren Hostage

'We Need $12 Trillion Or All These Kids Die'

SEPTEMBER 29, 2011 | ISSUE 47•39

WASHINGTON—Brandishing shotguns and semiautomatic pistols, members of the 112th U.S. Congress took a class of visiting schoolchildren hostage today, barricading themselves inside the Capitol rotunda and demanding $12 trillion dollars in cash.

Enlarge ImageIf the money is not delivered by this evening, members of Congress say they will shoot a new child every hour on the hour.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who has emerged as spokesman for the bipartisan group, informed FBI negotiators this morning that the ransom was to be placed in stainless-steel suitcases and left on the Capitol steps by 4 p.m. sharp. If their demands are not met in full, the 11-term representative announced, "all the kids will die."

"Bring us the money and we let the children go, simple as that," said Boehner, appearing in the East Portico with a serrated switchblade held to one of the fourth-grader's throats. "If you want to play games and stall for extra time, we're going to shoot one kid an hour, starting with little Dillon here."

"Tick tock," he added, vanishing back into the building with the terrified child in tow.

Shaken witnesses reported that the ordeal broke out around 10 a.m. this morning, when in the midst of a Capitol building tour, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) suddenly burst into the National Statuary Hall with a pair of black panty hose over his head and began firing a Beretta 9 mm handgun into the air, shouting, "Everybody down! Everybody get the fuck down!"

The schoolchildren were then led at gunpoint into the nearby Great Rotunda, where an agitated, profusely sweating Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) bound their hands and feet and duct-taped them to various sculptures, including a monument to women's suffrage and a marble figure of former president James Garfield. Although cell phones were confiscated immediately, one student managed to tweet a short video showing what appeared to be Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pistol-whipping a chaperone who attempted to yell for help.

"It's a very tense situation at the moment, and these things take time—more time than we've got," Special Agent Douglas Burkett of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit said. "We have snipers on the Supreme Court building, the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, and the National Museum of the American Indian, but so far none of them has been able to get a clear shot at any senators or representatives."

"While there's an assault team on the way, they won't be able to breach the door if members of Congress have rigged the place with explosives," Burkett added. "And that's quite possible. From the looks of things, I'd say they've been planning this for a while."

As the dramatic standoff continues to unfold, the bipartisan gang of lawmakers has laid out additional terms for releasing the children. Among the demands are guaranteed re-election in 2012, reduction of the veto-override threshold from two-thirds to one half of the Senate, new desks, and safe transport to Reagan National Airport with a fueled-up private jet waiting on the runway.

According to sources close to the 535-member legislative branch, Congress has recently fallen on hard times. Neighbors reported overhearing heated arguments going on late into the night about dangerously stretched budgets, a failing health care system, and the potential for an all-out government shutdown.

With the ransom deadline nearing and no apparent resolution in sight, President Barack Obama was summoned in a last-ditch effort to diffuse the situation. Despite an emotional bullhorn appeal to return to "honest talks aimed at reducing the national debt and getting millions of unemployed Americans back to work," the chief executive was met with silence.

"There's just no way of getting through to these people," said Obama, holding his head in his hands. "I know Speaker Boehner personally, and I know that he and his colleagues will not hesitate for a second to kill these poor children if they don't get their way."

"Trust me, this Congress will do it," the president added.

And they posted this update later in the day:

Hostage Negotiation Talks Stall In Congress

SEPTEMBER 29, 2011 | ISSUE 47•39

WASHINGTON— A congressional spokesperson informed the FBI that talks have stalled on the Senate floor and lawmakers will need more time to debate the proposed deal to release the group of schoolchildren they took hostage earlier today. "Obviously, the most important thing here is to reach a deal that works for both sides," read a statement from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on the disputed $12 trillion agreement that would free the young children currently being held at gunpoint by the country’s legislative branch. "But many important questions still remain: How will the ransom money be allocated? How can we cut needless expenditures such as individual ski masks for every congressman? Should there be a stipulation to take one of the children with us to ensure a clean getaway? Unfortunately, it may be quite some time before we can reach an adequate consensus on these and other issues." At press time, FBI officials said Congress had moved to extend the money drop-off deadline until early December.

 Is that really something police would take seriously? Or did a few members of Congress just get pissed off and demand The Onion be harassed?