Have you heard of the Dell Streak? In order to drum up excitement for the product, a sales manager at Dell decided to coordinate an internal promotional event at their Round Rock, TX office. Unfortunately the manager didn’t think things through very well and KXAN in Austin is reporting the stunt resulted in the SWAT team being called in and two employees being arrested on misdemeanor charges of “Interfering with Public Duties” and “Deadly Conduct.”
The “promotion” began with a man dressed in black biker gear with a black mask carrying two small metal objects telling people to “go to the lobby.” Although the article doesn’t state what happened next, it’s assumed that a frightened employee thought that this was a terrorist attack of some sort and quickly called police. The SWAT team was called in, the building was stormed, and chaos ensued. Luckily the police were able to quickly and safely identify that this was not an actual attack on the building but rather a marketing stunt gone awry.
It’s unclear what the marketing stunt was supposed to accomplish, what the small metallic objects were meant to represent, or how this all tied together with Dell’s new Streak tablet, but the “biker in black” and his manager were both arrested. According to police spokesman Eric Poteet, the marketing initiative was supposed to convince people to “go to the lobby because we"re introducing a new item.” Unconfirmed reports state that the new Dell Streak tablet can interface with Harley-Davidson motorcycles, which may help explain why the man was wearing biker gear.