Rice cookers prompt bomb scare in N.Y. subway
NEW YORK — It was the start of the Friday morning commute at the bustling Fulton Street transit hub in Lower Manhattan when, around 7 a.m., a subway rider approached two officers and reported two suspicious appliances.
Officers cleared the station, a busy transit complex where eight subway lines converge, and one train at the platform was evacuated while another was turned around and sent back, officials said.
An hour later, just as the police had determined the two devices were not explosives, they received another call alerting them to a third suspicious device placed by a garbage can farther uptown, inthe Chelsea neighborhood.
By 10 a.m., officials announced that all three devices had turned out to be empty rice cookers. But by then the discovery of the appliances, which were initially believed to be pressure cookers, had disrupted commutes and created a flurry of police activity and news alerts that heightened fears and rattled New York City residents.
Officials said they were seeking a person of interest who was seen on video leaving the two devices on the subway platform at the Fulton Street station.
“The time, rush hour; the place, a subway station; the item, rice cookers that could be mistaken for pressure cookers,” said John Miller, the New York Police Department’s deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism. Mr. Miller said it was possible the rice cookers were in the trash “and this guy picked them up and discarded them.”