Car bomb found in NYC's Times Square
NEW YORK - Police found an "amateurish" but potentially powerful bomb in a smoking sport utility vehicle in Times Square, then cleared the streets of thousands of tourists milling through the landmark district so they could dismantle it, authorities said Sunday.
"We avoided what we could have been a very deadly event," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "It certainly could have exploded and had a pretty big fire and a decent amount of explosive impact."
The mayor commended the actions of a T-shirt vendor — a Vietnam veteran, he said — who alerted a mounted policeman of an "unoccupied suspicious vehicle." The policeman observed that the SUV had smoke emerging from vents near the back seat and smelled of gunpowder.
After the vendor noticed the SUV, police cleared buildings and streets at the so-called "Crossroads of the World"; the area remained closed hours later. Officers were deployed around the area with heavy weapons on empty streets in the heart of busy midtown Manhattan.
A white robotic police arm broke the windows of the dark colored Nissan pathfinder to remove any explosive devices.
Investigators removed three propane tanks, consumer-grade fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
A black metal box resembling a gun locker was also recovered.
"I think the intent was to cause a significant ball of fire," Kelly said.
Bloomberg called the explosive device "amateurish" but potentially deadly, noting: "We are very lucky."
A Connecticut license plate on the vehicle did not match up, according to authorities, who did not know a motive. Police interviewed the Connecticut car owner, who told police he had sent the plates to a nearby junkyard, Bloomberg said. Police are reviewing surveillance video and looking for more.
'Act of terrorism'
New York Governor David Paterson called the incident an "act of terrorism."
"Luckily, no one is hurt, and now the full attention of city, state and federal law enforcement will be turned to bringing the guilty party to justice in this act of terrorism," he said in a statement.
Shelly Carlisle, of Portland, Ore., said police crowded into her Broadway theater after the curtain closed on "Next to Normal," a show on the same block where the SUV was found.
"At the end of the show, the police came in. We were told we had to leave," Carlisle said. "They said there was a bomb scare."
The car was parked on 45th Street, and the block was closed between Seventh and Eighth avenues as a precaution, police said. Times Square lies about four traffic-choked miles north of where terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, then laid waste to it on Sept. 11, 2001.
The block that was closed is one of the prime blocks for Broadway shows, with seven theaters housing such big shows as "Billy Elliot" and "Lend Me a Tenor."
The curtain at "God of Carnage" and "Red" opened a half-hour later than usual, but the shows were not canceled, said spokesman Adrian Bryan-Brown. Katy Neubauer, 46, and Becca Saunders, 39, of Milwaukee, were shopping for souvenirs two blocks south of the SUV when they saw panicked crowds. "It was a mass of people running away from the scene," Neubauer said. "There were too many people, too many cops. I've never seen anything like it," she said.
Quick response praised by Obama
Bloomberg left early from the White House correspondent's dinner in Washington, D.C., on Saturday night. President Barack Obama, who attended the annual gala, praised the quick response by the New York Police Department, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said.
He has also directed his homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, to advise New York officials that the federal government is prepared to provide support. Brennan and others will keep Obama up to date on the investigation, Shapiro said. The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York responded along with the NYPD, said agent Richard Kolko. A New York City firefighter who said he arrived early on the scene confirmed the vehicle was smoking and also said he saw "a flash" from the back of the SUV between 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
"The SUV was smoking. There was a flash and we put two and two together" and an evacuation was ordered, he said. The square itself was mostly evacuated by 8 p.m., according to Reuters reporters on the scene. Police had evacuated an area stretching from about 42nd Street up to 47th Street and including Seventh Avenue and Broadway.
Authorities had no suspects and no motive early Sunday in the latest threat to New York, where a Colorado man recently pleaded guilty to plotting an attack on the subway system. Officials said the device found Saturday was crudely constructed, but Islamic militants have used propane and compressed gas for years to enhance the force of explosives. Those instances include the 1983 suicide attack on the U.S. Marines barracks at the Beirut airport that killed 241 U.S. service members, and the 2007 attack on the international airport in Glasgow, Scotland.
In 2007 the U.S. military announced that an al-Qaida front group was using propane to rig car bombs in Iraq.
Times Square a target
Times Square has been a frequent target, if not for potential terrorists, then for rabble-rousers. In December, a van without license plates parked in Times Square led police to block off part of the area for about two hours. A police robot examined the vehicle, and clothes, racks and scarves were found inside.
In March 2008, a hooded bicyclist hurled an explosive device at a military recruiting center in the heart of Times Square, producing a flash, smoke and full-scale emergency response. No suspect was ever identified.
In December, police evacuated thousands of holiday tourists from Times Square after finding a white van that had been parked there for days without license plates and blacked-out windows. No bombs were found, and police later said they overlooked the van because it contained a parking placard for a nonprofit police group.
Police have spent years trying to crack down on street hustlers and peddlers preying on tourists. But there have been two major gunfights in recent months. A street hustler armed with a machine pistol exchanged shots in December, shattering a Broadway theater ticket window, before police fatally shot the man.
Four separate instances of shootings and more than 50 arrests on a mile-long stretch of Manhattan last month around Times Square prompted the mayor to call the mayhem "wilding.
