"Suspicious" Times Square White Van Owner Emerges!

The suspicious van that forced Times Square to a standstill on New Year's Eve Eve; photograph by Ken Maldonado

The owner of the "suspicious" white van with temporary plates and a fake police parking placard that forced a shutdown of Times Square on December 30—complete with the bomb squad investigation and neighboring building evacuations—emerged yesterday. And he was arrested! The Post reports, "The van's owner, George Freyer 36, turned himself in yesterday and was charged with possession of a forged instrument"—which is a felony—"Sources said a fake registration was found inside the vehicle."

While the NYPD's bomb squad surrounded the car, according to the Daily News, "A folding table and some imitation Burberry scarves were the van's only contents." (Freyer allegedly gave his keys to someone else to allow the police into the van on Wednesday.) The white van had been parked on Broadway between 41st and 42nd Streets for two days before the cops realized it didn't belong there.

It's believed that the parking placard, issued from the Detectives Crime Clinic, Metropolitan New Jersey and New York, convinced cops that the van was legitimately parked in the congested area. But Police Commissioner Ray Kelly admitted, "It should have been discovered before. We're doing an investigation into why it wasn't discovered earlier."

While Kelly wants to, per the News, "pursue possible civil action against the Bronx-based nonprofit for issuing the placard," Fox 5 reports that the group claims the placard was stolen. Kelly says that the placard has been added to its photos of fake placards but whatever—Transportation Alternatives found out last year that cops are fooled by fake placards.

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By Jen Chung in News on January 1, 2010 3:25 PM

Comments [rss]

m015094

When I was in the military I had stickers and a registration tag with a hologram on it (not easy to copy). Is it too hard to get behind something that cannot fool TEA with a Canon copier?

handsomedevil

Placard abuse finally comes back to bite them in the ass.

ProudLiberal1947

Wow! oohh! man leaves white van with phony paper work in Times Square, oh help ,help I am so afraid.

Yet the War Criminals from the Last Administration walk free, the Heritage right wing think tank walks free.

CIA inside source attacs and kills CIA agents (do you know who in the republican party in selling secrets).

Nigerian attempts to blow up plane again ( do you know who in the republican party is talking to), oh yeah another Hate Monger strong hold.

But we are going to shot the bells and whistles off because this guy left his van in Times Square. Oh! yes if he Lawyers up he is guilty ever see a SCUM BAG right talk with out a Lawyer DUH!

SP

The entire staff (no pun intended) at Faux News just went flaccid.

Unibooboo

Well, these sweeps should be done daily by police. Not just in Tourist Sq but in every area in the entire city

jlocke

What? UPCs are as easy to fake as a police placard.

Troy

Shouldn't be that hard to develop a kind of UPC scanner for placards. Every grocery store uses an off-the-shelf technology to scan and check items against a database. All placards, plates and taxi medallions could be easily scanned and checked for authenticity immediately. But no. Instead we have a system that makes it simple for terrorists to park vans in sensitive locations without attracting police attention. You're doing a heck of a job fellas.