Common explosive used in N.Y.C. bomb
• The bomb that rocked a Manhattan neighbourhood contained residue of an explosive often used for target practice that can be picked up in many sporting goods stores, a federal law enforcement official said Sunday, as authorities tried to unravel who planted the device and why.
The discovery of Tannerite in materials recovered from the Saturday night explosion that injured 29 people may be important as authorities probe possible connections to an unexploded pressurecooker device found by state troopers just blocks away, as well as a pipe bomb blast in a New Jersey shore town earlier in the day.
In a report from the New York Times, a police official said “fragmentation materials” were found in the unexploded pressure cooker and they appeared to match the shrapnel found at the blast site. The Times also reported that a “person of interest” had been identified in connection with the bombing.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, touring the site of the blast in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood, said there didn’t appear to be any link to international terrorism. He said the second device appeared “similar in design” to the first, but did not provide details.
“We’re going to be very careful and patient to get to the full truth here,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday. “We have more work to do to be able to say what kind of motivation was behind this. Was it a political motivation? A personal motivation? What was it? We do not know that yet.”
Cellphones were found at the site of both bombings, but no Tannerite residue was identified in the New Jersey bomb remnants, in which a black powder was detected, said the official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to comment on an ongoing investigation.
Authorities said the Manhattan bombing and the blast 11 hours earlier at the site of a 5K race to benefit marines and sailors in Seaside Park, N.J., didn’t appear to be connected, though they weren’t ruling anything out. The New Jersey race was cancelled and no one was injured.
Technicians in Quantico, Va., were examining evidence from the Manhattan bombing, described by witnesses as a deafening blast that shattered storefront windows and injured bystanders with shrapnel in the mostly residential neighbourhood on the city’s west side. All 29 of the injured people were released from the hospital by Sunday afternoon.
The explosion left many rattled in a city that had marked the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks only a week earlier and where a United Nations meeting to address the refugee crisis in Syria was scheduled for Monday.
“People didn’t know what was going on, and that’s what was scary,” said Anthony Zayas, an actor who was in the Chelsea neighbourhood Saturday night when the bomb went off. You didn’t know where to go.”
Tannerite, which is often used in target practice to mark a shot with a cloud of smoke and small explosion, is legal to purchase and can be found in many sporting goods stores. Experts said a large amount would be required to create a blast like the one Saturday night, as well as an accelerant or other ignitor.
The bomb in Manhattan appeared to have been placed near a large dumpster in front of a building under construction, another law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, told The Associated Press.
The second device, described by the same official as a pressure cooker with wires and a cellphone attached to it, was removed early Sunday by a bomb squad robot and New York City police blew it up in a controlled explosion Sunday evening, authorities said.
THAT’S WHAT WAS SCARY … YOU DIDN’T KNOW IF IT WAS COMING FROM THE SUBWAY BENEATH YOU. YOU DIDN’T KNOW IF THERE WERE OTHER BOMBS.