New Yorkers Avert ‘Deadly Event’; Police Disarm Bomb

By Henry Goldman and Mark Tannenbaum

May 2 (Bloomberg) -- New York police disarmed a bomb in a sport utility vehicle parked in Times Square, averting an attack in the heart of the city’s theater district on a Saturday evening.

“We are very lucky that we avoided what could have been a very deadly event,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters at a 2:20 a.m. news conference today one block from the corner of 45th Street and Broadway. “We have no idea who did this or why.”

Richard Kolko, a Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman, said the joint investigation by the FBI and New York Police Department hasn’t pinpointed a suspect.

The Pakistani Taliban movement claimed responsibility for the bombing attempt in a video posted on YouTube, said SITE Intelligence Group, a Bethesda, Maryland-based company that monitors use of the Internet by Islamic militant groups.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Qari Hussein Mehsud said the attack was vengeance for the killings of two militant leaders in Iraq. Mehsud could not immediately be reached by phone in Pakistan for confirmation of the claim.

Focus on ‘Symbols’

“Terrorists around the world who feel threatened by the freedoms that we have always focus on those symbols of freedoms and that is New York City,” said Bloomberg, who had been in Washington D.C. attending the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. He returned to the city upon hearing about the incident and arrived at the scene with Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Bloomberg said a T-shirt vendor alerted a police officer to a suspicious Nissan Pathfinder parked near the Minskoff Theater, venue of “The Lion King” musical. Bloomberg took office in January 2002, weeks after the coordinated Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by the al-Qaeda terror group that killed almost 3,000 people, most at the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon just outside of Washington.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the attempt appears to be a “one-off” event unrelated to any larger terrorist plot. She was interviewed today on ABC’s “This Week.” Later, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Napolitano said the incident “certainly looks” to be a terrorist act, although “it’s too soon to tell who was responsible.”

‘Lone Wolf’

Senator Charles Schumer told CNN that since intelligence services didn’t detect an unfolding plot, “the odds are quite high that this was a lone wolf.”

Bomb squad technicians used a robotic dismantler to take apart a crude explosive device that included propane tanks, Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said in a telephone interview earlier.

Parts of the heavily trafficked area were evacuated at about 6:35 p.m. There were no injuries and the bomb appeared to be unable to explode, Browne said.

While there may be images of the vehicle captured by video cameras in the neighborhood, the police have no witnesses who saw a suspicious man exiting the vehicle or running from the scene, the mayor said.

Propane Tanks, Fireworks

The car contained three propane tanks, consumer grade fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers and two clocks including batteries and a box resembling a gun locker, Kelly told reporters.

“It certainly could have exploded and have a decent amount of impact,” Bloomberg said.

Browne said the bomb was apparently in the process of detonating, but malfunctioned, the New York Times reported.

Witnesses interviewed by CNN said that white smoke began filling the interior of the car, followed by sparks.

The wiring was “amateurish,” Bloomberg said in his briefing.

He also said the vehicle identification number had been removed from the SUV, and police discovered its license plates, registered in the state of Connecticut, had been removed from a different vehicle, a truck discarded by its former owner at a Connecticut junkyard.

The street vendor alerted the mounted police officer to the vehicle, which had been emitting white smoke, at 6:28 p.m., Bloomberg said. The officer called for backup and began removing pedestrians from the area.

Tourist Destination

“The bottom line is we have the world’s greatest police department which focuses on anti-terrorism and intelligence and a public that understands that when you see something you say something and that’s why the city is safe,” Bloomberg said.

New York City in 2009 was the top U.S. tourist destination with 45.25 million visitors, surpassing Orlando, Florida, home of Walt Disney Co.’s Walt Disney World and Las Vegas. New York City visitors spent about $28 billion last year, injecting about $45 billion of total purchases into the economy, NYC & Co. said.

The city predicted 46.7 million visitors in 2010, and the mayor has set a goal of 50 million by 2012. The tourism office, with an annual budget of $38 million, has 18 branches serving 25 markets worldwide.

Some Broadway shows started 15 minutes to 30 minutes late because of the incident, including “Red” and “God of Carnage” playing in theaters on the block of 45th Street where the bomb was found, the New York Times reported.

The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.


When we were taking a bus from Jerusalem to Bethlehem last month there was a bomb scare at the bus stop. The IDF pulled in with an armored jeep and moved us all across the street from the bus stop saying there was "an incident". We watched as one of them dressed in an armored bomb suit and strung a line down the street a half a block to what looked for all the world like a white plastic trash bag. They attached a rope to it, tried to pull it towards the jeep but it snagged and they went up to it, and soon we heard a loud BANG!. It wasn't a bomb but the IDF blowing the plastic bag up themselves. Then they said it was all clear and we boarded the bus. Later when I told our Israeli Arab friends about this they said it wasn't unusual for Israelis to pull such a stunt at the busiest time of year for tourists in Jerusalem--to reinforce the idea that terrorists were always lurking. This NY bomb thing timed for Ahmadinejad's arrival has the same feeling to it to me, i.e. a deliberate attempt to link Iran's president with terrorism to discredit anything he says at the NPT summit.