NEW YORK — Investigators have spoken to the registered owner of an SUV used as a homemade car bomb in a failed terror attack in the heart of Times Square, police officials said today.
Paul Browne, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for public information, would not give further details on the registered owner, and would not say whether the person was considered a suspect.
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The 1993 dark-colored Nissan Pathfinder didn’t have a clearly visible vehicle identification number. Its license plates came from a car found in a Connecticut repair shop.
Investigators today were also looking to speak with a man in his 40s videotaped shedding his shirt near the sport utility vehicle where the bomb was found. The surveillance video, made public late Sunday, shows an unidentified white man apparently in his 40s slipping down Shubert Alley and taking off his shirt, revealing another underneath. In the same clip, he’s seen looking back in the direction of the smoking vehicle and furtively putting the first shirt in a bag.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, making the morning talk show rounds this morning, warned on NBC’s “Today” that the person on the tape may not become a suspect.
“There are millions of people that come through Times Square,” he said. “This person happened to be in a position which a camera got a good shot of him, and maybe he had something to do with it but there’s a very good chance that he did not. We’re exploring a lot of leads.”
The NYPD and FBI also were examining “hundreds of hours” of security videotape from around Times Square. They traveled to Pennsylvania for video shot by a tourist of a different person, and were evaluating the tape today and determining whether to make it public.
Police said the crude gasoline-and-propane bomb could have produced “a significant fireball” and sprayed shrapnel and metal parts with enough force to kill pedestrians and knock out windows. The SUV was parked on one of America’s busiest streets, lined with Broadway theaters and restaurants and full of people out on a Saturday night.
The area bounced back quickly and had returned to its normal bustle on a rainy Monday morning.
The Pakistani Taliban appeared to claim responsibility for the car bomb in three videos that surfaced after the weekend scare, monitoring groups said. New York officials said police have no evidence to support the claims and noted that the same group had falsely taken credit for previous attacks on U.S. soil.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano this morning told “Today” that no suspects had been ruled out.
“Right now, every lead has to be pursued,” she said. “I caution against premature decisions one way or another.”
Police released a photograph of the SUV as it crossed an intersection at 6:28 p.m. Saturday. A vendor pointed out the SUV to an officer about two minutes later.
The explosive device in the SUV had cheap-looking alarm clocks connected to a 16-ounce can filled with fireworks, which were apparently intended to detonate the gas cans and set the propane afire in a chain reaction, said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. It could have cut the SUV in half, produced “a significant fireball” and sprayed shrapnel and metal parts with enough force to kill pedestrians and knock out windows.
Investigators had feared that a final component placed in the cargo area – a metal rifle cabinet packed a fertilizer-like substance and rigged with wires and more fireworks – could have made the device even more devastating. Test results late Sunday showed it was indeed fertilizer, but NYPD bomb experts believe it was not a type volatile enough to explode like the ammonium nitrate grade fertilizer used in previous terror attacks, said police spokesman Paul Browne.
The exact amount of fertilizer was unknown. Police estimated the cabinet weighed 200 to 250 pounds when they pulled it from the vehicle.
Times Square, choked with taxis and people on one of the first summer-like days of the year, was shut down for 10 hours. Detectives took the stage at the end of some of Broadway shows to announce to theatergoers that they were looking for witnesses in a bombing attempt.
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