At about 8:30 p.m. on September 17, an improvised explosive devise rocked Manhattan’s busy Chelsea neighborhood, sending shrapnel flying, and injuring at least 29 people. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said it didn’t appear to be linked to worldwide terrorism. Several people can be seen passing out of view seconds before the explosion. “There’s glass everywhere. Shrapnel everywhere”. “We’re not going to let them instill fear”. The first reports came in just before 8:30 via social media. It was a violent act. It was a certainly a criminal act. It was a bombing. “We do not know that yet”.
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But De Blasio emphasized that the motive for the attack remains unknown.
“Was it a political motivation, a personal motivation”.
“All possible theories of what’s happened here and how it connects will be looked at but we have no specific evidence at this point in time”.
Mr Cuomo said that the attack was one of the “nightmare scenarios” a governor must face, but he added: “We have no reason to believe at this time that there is any further immediate threat”. ADDITIONAL POLICE DEPLOYED In New York, officials said they would deploy an additional 1,000 uniformed police officers and National Guard troops around a city already on a high state of alert heading into this week’s United Nations General Assembly.
In a letter posted to the NYPD’s website in advance of his retirement, Bratton said his second stint at the head of the nation’s largest police force effectively ended at midnight on September 18.
New Yorkers who live near the site of a powerful explosion in Manhattan waited to get back in their homes Sunday and exchanged stories about the frightening moments after the blast. No national terrorist organization has taken credit for it and there was no apparent political objective. Now it depends on your definition of terrorism.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says there’s no evidence that an explosion that rocked a crowded Manhattan neighborhood, injuring 29 people, had any link to worldwide terrorism.
Surveillance video from the site of the blast on West 23rd Street shows the explosion and indicates to investigators that an object containing the explosive device was intentionally left next to a construction trash container.
The attacker was confronted inside a store by an off-duty police officer identified as Jason Falconer, who works part-time for police in the nearby small town of Avon. Cuomo said the device that exploded on West 23rd Street and the non-detonated pressure cooker found on West 27th Street were both similar in design – but added that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is still assessing. “I just blacked out, next thing I know I’m in an ambulance”.
Another NPR staffer with Mayer called 911 and was later questioned by detectives about the device.
Pressure cookers packed with explosives and detonated with timing devices were used by two brothers in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 260.
“There are instructions all over the internet, and the crudity, positioning, and relative ineffectiveness of these does not suggest that a more sophisticated group played any role in this”.
FBI Assistant Director Will Sweeney told reporters that authorities are taking evidence collected to its facilities in Quantico, Va. for review.
While New York leaders continue to fumble over how to characterize the attack, experts have claimed that the bombing was an act of terrorism. Nobody was injured by that explosion.
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(AP Photo/Andres Kudacki). Mayor Bill de Blasio, center, and NYPD Chief of Department James O’Neill, center right, speak during a press conference near the scene of an apparent explosion on West 23rd street in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, in New Y.
