After a year of legal wrangling, 19-year old Star Simpson finally tells her story to BoingBoingTV. Star was the MIT student who was arrested at Boston’s Logan airport last year for wearing LED art on a hoodie when she went to go pick her friend Tim up. She was immediately surrounded by 40 cops, shackled and charged with “possessing a hoax device.” When it became apparent to Boston’s overreactive authorities that Star was not a threat and the media frenzy was in overdrive, they persisted in charging her with a crime. A year later, the case is settled and Star gives her first interview recounting the events.

I shot the video from Star’s perspective, so I got a chance to meet her and understand her a bit. She’s a super sweet, curious and creative college student, the complete opposite of what Boston’s authorities made her out to be. Boston has a history of overreacting to things they don’t understand, which is quite unfortunate. The climate of fear that many of us live under, leads to this kind of egregious reaction. At the end of the day, Star simply wants to build cool stuff that we can all appreciate.