The massive panic led to controversy and criticism from U.S. media sources, including these: "The Boston Globe", "Los Angeles Times", Fox News, "The San Francisco Chronicle", "The New York Times", CNN, and "The Boston Herald". Some 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.