The explosion on a commercial and residential street in New York City’s Chelsea district on Saturday night sent a deafening roar and a powerful shock wave through several blocks, wounding people with shrapnel and flying glass.
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Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who toured the site of the blast in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, said there didn’t appear to be any link to worldwide terrorism.
Less than three hours after the blast, an object police described as a “possible secondary device” was found just a few blocks away from the original explosion.
The second device, found in a plastic bag and similar to the bomb in the 2013 Boston Marathon blasts, was discovered on West 27th Street.
Mayor de Blasio said Sunday that authorities don’t yet know who made it, who set it off or the motivation behind it but called the blast an “intentional act”.
“A bomb exploding in NY is obviously an act of terrorism”, said Mr Cuomo. The NYPD upped its presences throughout the entire city as a precaution, even though de Blasio stressed there wasn’t a “credible and specific threat” to New York Saturday night.
The New Jersey device contained evidence of a black powder, while the device that exploded in Manhattan had residue from an explosive called Tannerite, said a federal law enforcement official.
In an interview on MSNBC later Sunday, Cuomo said the different wording used by him and de Blasio was nothing more than “a question of semantics”.
Watch the full briefing by Mayor de Blasio, Police Commissioner O’Neill and other city officials here: The mayor said the Chelsea bombing does not appear to be connected to the explosive device that went off in Central Park earlier this summer.
A federal law enforcement official told the AP on Sunday that the FBI was evaluating a claim of responsibility for the New York City bombing on the social blogging service Tumblr.
“Obviously, we need to do everything we can to support our first responders, also to pray for the victims”, Clinton said. It was criminal. It was violent. But at the same time, almost 1,000 New York State police and members of the National Guard will be deployed to bus terminals, airports and subway stations.
In stating that there is now no evidence of the incident being linked to global terrorism, the Times reports that Cuomo also said it was still early in the investigation.
Alam said he hit the gas and tried to take his passengers to their destination in Queens, but pulled over along Madison Avenue and 39th Street.
“They’re looking after us like brothers and sisters”, she said.
What we know: Around 8:30 p.m. Saturday an explosion occurred at 23rd Street and 6th Avenue on Manhattan’s west side.
Cops were also interviewing two men who claim to have spotted a potential person of interest in the case, sources said.
“Now, I want to be clear: Whatever the cause, whatever the intention here, New Yorkers will not be intimidated”, he said.
Only 32 US civilians died from terror attacks worldwide in 2014, the latest year for which data are available, according to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. We know it was a very serious incident, but we have a lot more work to do to be able to say what kind of motivation was behind this.
The Fire Department says the blast was reported shortly before 9 p.m. Saturday on West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. St. Cloud Police Chief William Blair Anderson said the victims were stabbed by a man dressed in a private security uniform. “You didn’t know if was coming from the subway beneath you, you didn’t know if there were other bombs, you didn’t know where to go”.
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Police and federal spokespeople wouldn’t comment on the presence of explosive material recovered at the scene.
