2 N.J. men hailed as heroes for key assist in bomb case
ELIZABETH, N.J. — Homeless and jobless, 50year-old Lee Tyrone Parker thought he had finally stumbled onto a bit of luck when he and a friend, Ivan White, found a new backpack sitting on top of a garbage can.
It was Sunday night during halftime of the National Football League game. The men, whowerewatching at a friend’s apartment, ducked out to grab a beer at a bar near the train station here. Coming out of the bar, they spotted the bag.
“Being I’m homeless, I figured I could use a book pack,” Parker said in a telephone interview. “Well that book pack turned into a long evening.”
The men lugged the bag with them under the elevated train tracks, puzzled that it was so heavy. Because Parker wasn’t interested in the contents— only the bag — they emptied it.
Out came what looked like decorator’s candles— at least at first glance.
“Forgive my naivete, but I knew decorator’s candles don’t have these long stems with wires attached so I knew something was not quite right,” Parker said.
So he and White headed to the police station in Elizabeth, where police and the FBI interviewed them until 4 a.m.
Investigators quickly discovered that the bag contained five pipe bombs, allegedly assembled by Ahmad Khan Rahami, who was suspected in Saturday’s bombings in New York and NewJersey.
Parker said he only became scared after police attempted to dismantle the bomb using a robot and set off an explosion.
“Now that robot’s in the scrap yard, and I’m alive, thank God,” Parker said.
He’s not only alive, but being celebrated as a hero. Lee Tyrone Parker onWednesday shows where he found a backpack containing pipe bombs in Elizabeth, N.J. Suitcase sought
NEWYORK— Investigators of lastweekend’s bombings have released an image of two men who took a suitcase they found on a city street, possibly without realizing a wired pressure cooker they removed fromit and left behind could have blown them to bits.
Police investigating the bombings inNewYork and NewJersey stressed the menwere being sought as potential witnesses in the case, not as suspects.
Prosecutors said surveillance video shows Ahmad Khan Rahami rolling a suitcase down the street, then abandoning it on the sidewalk.
A few minutes later, two men pass by the luggage and appear to admire it, police said. They then remove a pressure cooker fromthe luggage, set it on the sidewalk andwalk away with the luggage. It is unclear whether the bomber intended to blow up the train tracks or was only dumping the evidence in flight. The tracks are part of the Northeast corridor linking New York toWashington, the busiest route in theUnited States.
In addition, the discovery of the backpack helped lead to the capture the next morning of Rahami, who lived nearby above a friedchicken restaurant.
Parker and White were initially reluctant to publicly reveal their identities. Friends said they were embarrassed about their circumstances. But an Elizabethnonprofit, At Heart’s Length, which helps the underprivileged, set out to find the men.
“Through a source, we found out one of them was Ivan, who we already knew, and he put us in contact with Lee ” said Lester Dominguez, president of the nonprofit. “They are ... very nice, sweet people.’’
White, who is a retired veteran, lives on a small fixed income, but contrary to initial reports, is not homeless. Parker has been homeless for about three years. The Elizabeth Coalition for theHomeless is now finding an apartment for Parker and trying to help him get a job.
On Tuesday night, Parker said he was staying in an efficiency hotel, courtesy of the nonprofit.
“I had a steak dinner. I haven’t eaten steak in a very long time,” Parker said. “Now I’ve got a room. I’m running the water and I’m going to take a long shower.”