Conditioning the public for martial law certainly has its challenges. The good news is, this is the only time it should happen this week…in Asheville.

(Asheville Citizen-Times ) Larry Smith had planned on taking a stroll through downtown Monday afternoon after finishing up business at the county courthouse.

Instead, Smith found himself surrounded by police officers, military vehicles with machine guns inside and a group of snipers lying on the grass in the new Pack Square Park.

A series of explosions as the snipers fired made it sound as if a bomb had gone off, he said.

“There were people all around that were frightened,” Smith said. “There were four people pushing strollers, and they were getting out of there. They almost broke into a run to get out of there.”

“I wouldn’t have believed it unless I saw it,” he said. “It was that crazy.”

The exercise was a part of a sniper class being conducted by the Asheville Police Department. The class, which includes trainees from across the region, was practicing sight and sound testing, and covert placement, police spokesman Lt. Wally Welch said.

Welch said there should have been signs and uniformed police officers there to explain what was going on. Smith said there were no signs and no warning before the explosions.

Welch said there was miscommunication between the training division and the rest of the department. Department administrators were not aware of the training exercise until a few hours before it occurred, he said.

Welch said the department’s interim chief was talking to the training officers Monday afternoon about the incident.

“We apologize for the miscommunication,” Welch said. “This should be the one and only time it happens this week.”

Smith said the group of officers was acting “like cowboys.”

And Janet Napolitano says, ‘Denver is the frontline for homegrown terrorism‘. Pffft.

UPDATE (05.19.11): Oops! Bomb At Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Was Only A Drill

(StarTribune) With their guns drawn, police surrounded a man who reportedly was trying to get through security at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport with a bomb in a carry-on bag.

It was a drill, but the trouble was no one had told the cops, who thought it was real.

“I think a lot of people were alarmed,” Patrick Hogan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Airport Commission, said of last week’s incident. “There is always a danger that someone could have gotten hurt. It was unfortunate.”

The routine drill conducted by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began about 2:40 p.m. last Thursday, when a man with a fake bomb in his bag attempted to get through the security at checkpoint 2, which is near the United, American and U.S. Airways airlines ticketing counters, Hogan said. The screener identified what looked to be an explosive device and immediately notified authorities.

The police quickly evacuated the ticketing area and mall area, and with their guns drawn, confronted the man, Hogan said.

~snip~

DHS Executive, ‘I’m going to f***ing decapitate every single person’: HERE

Team Napolitano labels returning veterans as ‘lone wolf extremists’: HERE

Denver ‘frontline for homegrown terrorism’: HERE

Janet Napolitano: 6-year-old pat down ‘done professionally’: HERE

Janet Napolitano and her surveillance cameras ‘to catch terrorists’: HERE

Janet Napolitano, the Queen of doublespeak: HERE

Naked body scanners invade US streets: HERE

Storing scanned image lies: HERE and HERE

No worries, Janet Napolitano has everything under control: HERE

DHS budget doesn’t secure a single additional mile of US-Mexico border: HERE

Our nation cannot survive treason from within: HERE

Weak-Kneed Christians: HERE