Thieves inadvertently helped the police find a bomb in New York’s fashionable neighbourhood of Chelsea, it emerged on Monday after the suspect wanted for planting the device and detonating another was
Thieves inadvertently helped the police find a bomb in New York’s fashionable neighbourhood of Chelsea, it emerged on Monday after the suspect wanted for planting the device and detonating another was arrested.
The pressure cooker device was discovered on 27th Street on late Saturday — four blocks away from the site where a similar bomb exploded, wounding 29 people.
“We have a video of two persons who picked up the bag, took the device out of it and then walked off with the bag,” New York chief of detectives Robert Boyce told a news conference Monday.
“They looked like there were two gentlemen just strolling up and down Seventh Avenue at the time,” Mr Boyce added. “Once they picked up the bag, they seemed incredulous they had actually picked this up off the street.” The police are now trying to track down and speak to the two witnesses.
It was “difficult to say right now” whether the thieves inadvertently pulled a wire on the device, which may have disabled the bomb, Mr Boyce said.
But a police spokesman said they did not disarm the device, which was later safely defused by law enforcement and sent to the FBI for analysis.
In the neighbouring state of New Jersey, two homeless men also found the backpack that contained five pipe bombs overnight in Elizabeth, the hometown of Afghan-born suspected bomber Ahmad Khan Rahami. The men picked the bag up hoping it might contain something valuable and walked down the street before realising there was something wrong, Mr Bollwage told reporters.
