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Global General

Video shows possible SUV bomb suspect in alley

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-05-03 10:55

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Video shows possible SUV bomb suspect in alley

Law enforcement officers examine a Nissan Pathfinder sport utility vehicle that was packed with bomb materials in New York's Times Square, May 1, 2010. [Agencies]

The city's busiest streets, choked with taxis and people on one of the first summer-like days of the year, were shut down for 10 hours, unnerving thousands of tourists attending Broadway show, museums and other city sights. Detectives took the stage at the end of some shows to announce to theatergoers that they were looking for witnesses in a bombing attempt.

"No more New York," said Crysta Salinas. The 28-year-old Texas woman was stuck waiting in a deli until 2 a.m. local time because part of a Marriott hotel was evacuated because of the bomb.

A Pakistani Taliban group claimed responsibility for the failed attack in a 1-minute video. Kelly, however, said police have no evidence to support the claims, and noted that the same group had falsely taken credit for previous attacks on US soil. The commissioner also cast doubt on an e-mail to a news outlet claiming responsibility.

The New York Police Department and FBI were also examining "hundreds of hours" of security videotape from around Times Square, Kelly said.

Police released a photograph of the SUV, a dark-colored Nissan Pathfinder, as it crossed an intersection at 6:28 p.m. local time Saturday. A vendor pointed the SUV out to an officer about two minutes later.

Police said they had identified the registered owner of the 1993 Pathfinder, but hadn't spoken to him yet. The license plate found on the vehicle did not belong to the SUV; police said it came from a car found in a repair shop in Connecticut.

Duane Jackson, a 58-year-old handbag vendor, said he noticed the car and wondered who had left it there in a no-standing zone.

Jackson said he looked in the car and saw keys in the ignition with 19 or 20 keys on a ring. He said he alerted a passing mounted police officer.

They were looking in the car "when the smoke started coming out and then we heard the little pop-pop-pop like firecrackers going out and that's when everybody scattered and ran back," he said.

"Now that I saw the propane tanks and the gasoline, what if that would have ignited?" Jackson said. "I'm less than 8 feet away from the car."

Times Square lies about four miles north of where terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, then laid waste to it on September 11, 2001.

Top federal law enforcement and intelligence officials - President Barack Obama's national security adviser James Jones, national intelligence director Dennis Blair, CIA chief Leon Panetta, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder - planned to participate in a meeting later Sunday on the bomb.