NYC officers lauded for ‘bomb’ response
With hoax device in car, they drove away fromnearby crowds
Associated Press
NEW YORK — When a passing driver hurled a flashing, clicking object into their police van in Times Square, it looked like danger to Sgt. Hameed Armani and Officer Peter Cybulski.
“Boss, this is a bomb,” Cybulski said.
But rather than run to safety, Armani hit the gas, determined to get the device away from the crowds.
“We’re gonna go, but I’m not going to have anybody else go with us,” he thought.
The partners were hailed for their quickthinking courage Thursday after the dramatic episode, which evolved into an overnight police standoff with the man suspected of tossing the object, later revealed to be a harmless fake.
Armani and Cybulski “put their own lives at risk so that they could save potentially hundreds, if not thousands, of people in Times Square,” Police Commissioner William Bratton said, calling them “heroes of this city.”
The driver, whom police identified as Hector Meneses, 52, was taken to a hospital for evaluation. Calls to possible phone numbers for him and relatives weren’t immediately returned. It wasn’t clear whether he had a lawyer who could comment about the incident.
The bomb hoax in one of the world’s busiest cities came at a tense time for police and communities nationwide, amid anger and anxiety over police killing civilians, gunmen killing police and recent attacks by extremists in Orlando, Florida, and Europe.
Armani and Cybulski were in a marked, parked police van down the block from the theater showing the hit musical “Hamilton,” when an SUV slowly rolled by. Security-camera video shows the driver throwing something into the officers’ open passenger-side window.
Armani turned on the lights and sirens, and the officers headed away from the square, praying, said the sergeant, who’s Muslim; his partner is Catholic. Armani, an Afghan immi- grant, joined the New York Police Department 10 years ago. Cybulski became an officer three years ago after two years in a police cadet program.
“We thought, ‘This is it. We’re not going to make it ... but I’m happy nobody else is going to get hurt,’” Armani said.
They drove a block and a half to a less crowded spot, then got the device out of the van. It turned out to contain a red candle, two solar-powered garden lights, a T-shirt and tin foil, said William Aubry, the chief of Manhattan detectives.