 The incident led to controversy and criticism from a number of media sources, including "The Boston Globe", "Los Angeles Times", Fox News, "The San Francisco Chronicle", "The New York Times", CNN and "The Boston Herald", some of which ridiculed the city's response to the devicesincluding the arrests of the two men hired to place the placards around the areaas disproportionate and indicative of a generation gap between city officials and the younger residents of Boston, at whom the ads were targeted.Several sources noted that the hundreds of officers in the Boston police department or city emergency planning office on scene were unable to identify the figure depicted for several hours until a young staffer at Mayor Thomas Menino's office saw the media coverage and recognized the figures as cartoon characters from the TV show.After the devices were removed, the Boston Police Department stated in their defense that the ad devices shared "some characteristics with improvised explosive devices," which they said included an "identifiable power source, a circuit board with exposed wiring, and electrical tape."