Police search for second man over New York car bomb

[maddezmom]

Source: Timesonline

New York City police officers were today searching for a second man in connection with a failed car bomb after fresh footage captured on a tourist’s camcorder showed someone running from the scene.

Ray Kelly, the New York police commissioner, said video appeared to show a man running north on Broadway away from a Nissan Pathfinder packed with petrol, propane and fireworks.

Officers were continuing to pour through hundreds of hours of video recorded by both CCTV cameras and visitors to Times Square who may have inadvertently filmed the would-be bomber. Footage released earlier showed a man taking off some of his clothes and looking back towards the nearby vehicle.

As the enormous police operation unfolds, forensic analysts combed the vehicle looking for fingerprints, strands of hair or clothing fibres. Investigators said today that they had spoken to the registered owner of the sport utility vehicle, which was found on Saturday night with stolen licence plates. Police officers would not say whether the owner was considered a suspect.


Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7115086.ece

[skip fox]

1. I'm guessing the shirt changer is more likely. More like McVeigh.

Parallels between NY City attempted bombing and Timothy McVeigh’s bombing:

The botched NY bombing shares a number of striking parallels with the Timothy McVeigh bombing in Oklahoma City beside the obvious vehicle-building-walk-cooly-away narrative . . . although that, in itself, is very compelling–the botched bomber replicating the act of his (or her?) hero in broad strokes. But there seem to be a couple light strokes as well.

The botched bomber placed eight bags of fertilizer which the investigators say was non-explosive, into a gun box. If he knew the fertilizer was useless, it would be a clear homage to McVeigh. (The gun box being a tip of the hat to McVeigh's military background.) (If he didn't know this it could still be an homage, hoping to replicate his hero's methods as closely as possible.)

The NY attempted bomber locked the van's doors, leaving the keys inside. Some accounts say McVeigh left the keys in the Ryder's cab and locked the doors. (I think the case is that he took the keys, but there is no accounting where these people get their information. Source: http://history1900s.about.com/cs/crimedisaster/p/okcitybombing.htm)

Fireworks went off in the NY van alerting vendors. The attempted bomber appeared to be inept in a number of ways, so it is not likely that the clock set off the fireworks. It is more likely that he lit a long fuse. Similarly, McVeigh lit two fuses just before he left the Ryder.


Additionally, MSNBC played a show based on The McVeigh Tapes: Confessions of an American Terrorist on the 19th of April.

I could be way off, but if I was leading the investigation I'd be putting resources into this question, hoping to find him before he is successful with his homicidal intentions.


Therefore, in an investiation taking these matters seriously:

I’d look into far-right web/hate sites, those where McVeigh is discussed glowingly. Maybe Free Republic.

Since the person’s issues were important enough to kill for, I think his alignment to McVeigh would be apparent in his screen name (anagram of “Timothy McVeigh”? a character’s name in The Turner Diaries?)

I'd look very closely at those who passionately referenced MSNBC’s April 19th The McVeigh Tapes: those who ranted against MSNBC's commentary and/or those who relished new McVeigh quotes from the tapes.

I’d perhaps put some resources looking into the extreme fringe of the Tea Party, but I think the far-right hate sites would be more fruitful . . . (In which case the FBI should soon be onto him . . . or her!)

[bigworld]

2. Interesting analysis

The job DOES look like it was slap-dashed together (about 10 days would do it) so you have a good point. I wonder why that particular corner though?

[skip fox]

5. Yes, I've been wondering. No federal buildings as far as I can tell.

But it is a center of American elite culture (from a certain, impoverished perspective), a culture that is a sign of a cancer which will destroy the nation if people don't wake up (from that same perspective?)

Or maybe simply because it's NY (will show large in the news) and is a target rich environment.

[Lena inRI]

10. British article cited addresses why. . .

"Peter King, a Republican congressman from Long Island, drew a link to the recent dispute between a radical Islamic group and South Park, a satirical cartoon. The car bomb was found near the office of Viacom, which owns the network that broadcast an episode of the programme last month that controversially depicted the Prophet Mohammed.

You have the whole issue with South Park, which Islamic terrorists were threatening to have retribution for, he told CNN, although he emphasised that the theory was one possibility out of a hundred."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7115086.ece

:smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

[Flaneur]

12. Peter King is a dangerous reactionary idiot.

[Robb]

19. Look! We agree on something!

...This is the beauty of DU. There's always something.... :D

[Recursion]

20. It was 42nd and 7th, right?

That's kind of liberal-media-elite-central

[skip fox]

16. The writer of the Turner Diaries (McVeigh's inspiration) and leader

of The National Allaince, William Pierce, hated "feminized wimps." From a similarly warped perspective, the center for a "feminized, wimpish culture" might be seen as Times Square.

[greencharlie]

4. how many places have you cut/pasted this post? nt

[skip fox]

7. lots

I rarely do this but think the idea deserves consideration.

[LowOiL]

26. I’d look into far-right web/hate sites, those whereb McVeigh is discussed glowingly. Maybe Free Repu

Quote:"I’d look into far-right web/hate sites, those where McVeigh is discussed glowingly. Maybe Free Republic." /End Quote

Well that one guess bombed about as bad as the terrorist bomb did.

Bomber went to college in Pakistan. Naturalized American but with several trips back to his homeland.

[Bragi]

3. Not sure about the shirt-changer

He looks to me like someone who removes a warm sweater on an unexpectedly warm night.

Dunno.

[skip fox]

21. Most others in video NOT in tea shirts. Looks like jackets for most.

Why, then, is the sweater changer too hot?

(Well, there could be a number of reasons of course.)

[Bragi]

23. Maybe

I do see others with bare arms, and I think I read somewhere that it was an unusually warm evening. Yes?

At any rate, I presume there must be more than just him taking off his outer shirt on the video that arouses suspicion.

[skip fox]

24. yes. The time and the "furtive" looking about, according to investigation.

But you sureoy have a point. (But if it was so warm, why all the jackets?

[alcibiades_mystery]

25. It was unseasonably warm in NY this past weekend

I got in Sunday, and it felt like mid-summer in Queens; high 80's on the street. I can easily see somebody removing a sweater and placing it in a bag as an innocent affair given the weather, especially a tourist who has a vague sense of what NY weather is supposed to be like in early May.

[Democat]

6. Where is the second video?

The link shows the old video, right?

[maddezmom]

9. the police haven't released it yet as far as I can tell

they were saying maybe sometime this afternoon.

[Democat]

14. Thanks!

I was looking for it after reading the article and I couldn't find it.

[monmouth]

8. Some excellent police work going on. Juliannie must be heartbroken

he isn't front and center on this...LOL.

[aquart]

11. Yes, spiteful childish pettiness is really called for now.

Giuliani was there when the buildings fell. He had to run for his life. DID YOU? He lost friends, people he'd worked with for years, people he had just been talking to. DID YOU?

People who were actually here don't talk as if anyone would relish repeating the experience.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

13. and he milked his 9/11 experience for political gain ever since

He gets no sympathy from me.

[lazarus]

15. he didn't run for his life

he ran to Ground Zero, because that's where the genius decided to put his emergency bunker. Because nobody would ever attack the WTC again. :eyes:

[greiner3]

17. "said video appeared to show a man;'

And police are trying to determine if he was yelling allah acbar or cinco de mayo.

[starroute]

18. There have been earlier Times Square incidents

Here's one that has some distinct similarities:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/police-investigate-explosion-in-times-square/

March 6, 2008, 5:33 am
Blast Damages Times Square Recruiting Station

New York City police officers and firefighters cordoned off much of Times Square for more than two hours after a small explosion — set off, the authorities said, by an “improvised explosive device” — damaged the front of the Armed Forces Career Center on the traffic island bounded by 43rd and 44th Streets, Seventh Avenue and Broadway at 3:43 a.m., officials said. No one was injured, and after a temporary interruption, subway service was restored. . . .

The police said the explosive device involved in the Times Square blast this morning was “roughly similar” to the devices used in two earlier bombings at foreign consulates in Manhattan, in 2005 and 2007, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said at an afternoon news conference. The device had been placed in an ammunition box like the kind that can be bought at a military supply store. Officials said that in today’s attack, a man bundled in a gray hooded jacket or sweatshirt and wearing a backpack was seen riding a bicycle around the recruiting station and acting suspiciously moments before the explosion. Video footage from a surveillance camera showed a bicyclist dismounting, approaching the recruitment center, then returning to the bike and riding away before the explosion occurs.


On edit -- here are those earlier consulate incidents:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/05/nyregion/05cnd-blast.html

May 5, 2005

Two small explosions went off in a large cement planter outside a building housing the British Consulate on Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan early today, causing some property damage but no injuries. . . .

The blasts, which occurred as voters went to the polls in Britain in a general election, shattered the glass in the front door of the building. The consulate is on the 9th and 10th floors of the buildings, which also houses other foreign-based offices.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelley said at a news conference that the devices that caused the explosions were believed to be World War II "novelty grenades" of the type that someone might keep on their desks. He said they had been packed with black powder.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/27/nyregion/27consulate.html

October 27, 2007

Two dummy hand grenades that had been fashioned into crude bombs exploded outside the Mexican Consulate in Manhattan about 3:40 a.m. yesterday, the authorities said. The attack bore a striking similarity to a blast two years ago outside an office building housing the British Consulate. . . .

Law enforcement officials were investigating whether the attacks on the two consulates were the work of the same person, but stopped short of definitively linking them. Nevertheless, they said the improvised explosive devices used in both cases were virtually identical. . . .

In the 2005 explosion, surveillance videotape, along with other evidence, indicated that someone riding a bicycle had hurled a device at the building. The arc of the device — with its lighted fuse — can be seen on the videotape.

In yesterday’s attack, a witness reported seeing a man in his 20s on a bicycle pedaling quickly away and turning south onto Park Avenue, the police said. The bicyclist was wearing a hooded gray jacket and his face was partly covered, but the police could not say for certain that he threw the grenades.

[tanyev]

22. I suspect the officers were actually poring through the video, not pouring.