A device exploded in a garbage pail in the USA state of New Jersey on Saturday along the route of a planned road run, local prosecutor’s office said.
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“It’s obvious it was meant to affect the run – the fact that it went off at 9:35am”, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, Al Della Fave, said in an interview on CNN.
SEASIDE PARK-Brad Cohen, acting special agent in charge of the Newark office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation said a registration delay at the Semper Five 5k race in Seaside Park spared casualties after a bomb went off shortly after the scheduled start time of the race.
At least 15 people were injured in an explosion in Chelsea Saturday night, and authorities are investigating if an incendiary device was planted in a garbage can on the sidewalk, a senior official familiar with the investigation says.
Race officials and local authorities canceled the event, race organizers said.
Two officials briefed on the investigation said preliminary results indicate that the devices in the trash can packed enough explosive punch to cause serious injury to people if the race had actually started on time.
Three years ago, on April 15, double bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon left three people dead and more than 250 others wounded. The incidents don’t seem connected, but NY and New Jersey are working together to investigate, Cuomo said.
The bomb exploded in this trash can around 9:30 Saturday morning.
“We just know there was a bombing”, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at briefing at New York Police Department’s headquarters.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the charity race would be rescheduled. Authorities say the pipe bomb was wired to other explosives but they did not all detonate.
The group that organized the event thanked Seaside Park police and the other emergency responders “for their quick action”. The U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Special Operations Command (MARSOC), is the Marine Corps service component to the U.S.
Anyone with information related to the explosion is being asked to call the New Jersey State Police Homeland Security Tipline at 1-866-4SAFENJ. “And so as I said, we have some promising leads”, Christie said.
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Damage to a garbage can after a bomb exploded in Seaside Park, Sept. 17, 2016. But after thinking about it for a minute, Ruedin said he thought to himself “that was one hell of a start to a race”.
