Results tagged “pipebomb”

Speaking to Newsday from behind bars at a "private federal prison" in Queens, 20-year-old Steven Nobles says he "made a huge mistake" when, in a rush to catch his flight at MacArthur airport on Long Island last Thursday, he shoved a pipe bomb in his carry-on luggage. He must also be smacking his forehead for packing those fireworks, the 7-inch knife, the electrical circuit boards, and a dozen .22-caliber rounds used in a nailgun to drive nails into concrete. Nobles says we wants to write a letter to "all of New York" saying he's "sorry for what happened." Nevertheless, a judge denied bail and called Nobles "a danger to the community." He faces up to 20 years in prison, but his uncle Frank Henderson, who gave Nobles a job, says, "A terrorist would try to hide it. He didn't hide anything. He put it on the scanner. He hasn't grown up yet. I tried to keep him on the straight and narrow by giving him a trade. A kid is going to be a kid."

A judge denied bail to the 20-year-old man whose pipe bomb, knife, fireworks, and .22-caliber rounds in his belongings caused MacArthur Airport to be partially shut down on Thursday. Newsday reports that Magistrate Kathleen Tomlinson thinks that Steven Nobles "poses a danger to the community" and said she was "not sure how a rational person carries a pipe bomb" onto an airplane. She added, "His actions are bizarre." A lawyer for Nobles, a Las Vegas resident who had been working for his uncle on Long Island, said his client "forgot" the pipe-bomb and 7-inch knife were in his carry-on bag (the other things were in his checked bag). The U.S. Department of Justice has not stated whether the items could have exploded on their own, but the authorities are testing them.

When you're found to be making pipe bombs amidst an apartment arsenal of weapons and then confess to painting swastikas in your Brooklyn Heights neighborhood, expect the book to be thrown at you repeatedly. Ivaylo Ivanov was charged with over 100 criminal counts for his activities.

The story of Ivaylo Ivanov just gets more and more strange. First, he calls the cops saying that he was shot in the hand only to admit that he shot himself. Next, the police investigate the situation only to find a cache of assorted weapons and pipe bombs at Ivanov's residence. Now the 31-year-old ex-con admits to defacing Brooklyn Heights with swastikas last year.

Yesterday we mentioned that a cache of weapons - including a number of pipe bombs - were found in a Remsen Street apartment in Brooklyn Heights. Now it turns out the apartment was shared by an ex-con and a professor at Columbia University!

After a man arrived at a Brooklyn hospital with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gun shot wound to his hand, police investigating the incident discovered a cache of weapons, including multiple pipe bombs, in his Brooklyn Heights apartment. Police could not rule out terrorism as they confiscated weapons and possibly explosive devices from the man's apartment on Remsen St. And they weren't going to let neighbors relax either.

Newspaper photographers usually tend to contribute to the story - not be the subject of them. But today there happens to be two stories about the NY Post's shutterbugs.

It's time for the tabloids to make a number of bada-boom puns, as the police confirmed that it was a pipe bomb that was set off yesterday morning outside the West 29th Street building owned by Sopranos actor Michael Imperioli and his wife. The NYPD said there no known threats to the Imperiolis and during a press conference, Mayor Bloomberg said, "While there certainly is no evidence that this was terrorism, we are taking this and every act of violence extremely seriously, and we'll take every step to identify and apprehend whoever set this explosive device off."

This morning, an explosion occurred on 29th Street near 8th Avenue. No one was injured, but a van was damaged and residents were evacuated during the 1AM incident. The police believe it was either a pipe bomb or another "small explosive...meant to scare as opposed to cause significant damage or injuries."

After scaring residents of two boroughs when a woman discovered a pipe bomb on her Jeep Cherokee, police arrested Baudelio Rodriguez for making a pipe bomb and placing it on a car. What makes the story more strange is that it was Rodriguez's daughter who discovered the bomb - the Jeep belongs to his daughter and his wife! He was reportedly angry at his wife for leaving their Brooklyn home and staying with their daughter in Staten Island.

Police are wondering if yesterday's execution-style killing of Genovese crime family member is related to the shooting of another mob member a day before. The Post has a graphic (pictured) showing that the Tuesday attack on Gambino family member Robert DeCicco was just a mile away from Rudolph Izzi's Shore Parkway home, where he was found dead.

Remember when kids would just cause explosions with chemistry sets? Well, 18 year old Jackson Lam was at home in Woodhaven making pipe bombs and threw one out a window yesterday afternoon. Good one! As if that wouldn't make neighbors call the police, who would then come and investigate. The neighbors did just that when they heard the explosion, and the bomb squad found Lam and his neighbor, Raoul Cano, with another pipe bomb that they were going to explode. WABC 7 reports that Lam learned how to make bombs on the Internet. Of course.

Yesterday, a mysterious incident caused the Williamsburg Bridge to be shut down, both on the roadway and subway, yesterday morning. The J, M, and Z were affected, and proving that some people do ride the J, M, and Z, one reader wrote to Gothamist about the incident, feeling that it was impromptu and a pain, "as more or less mellow cops directed thwarted hipsters to the L," adding, "I don't know how those hipsters stand it, what a nightmare. I guess they are so tweaked out on designer drugs and Prozac they don't mind being wedged like sardines." That's difficult: Gothamist tries to be prepared for extended subway commutes by bringing our camera, water, a book, and two newspapers plus a gossip magazine, but if the subway car is crowded, we just stare at the ceiling. Sigh. [Updated:] It turns out that the bridge was shut down because the police thought they found a pipe bomb (left in a bag) on the bridge's span; it was actually a crack pipe! Addicts, please, be mindful of your fellow New Yorkers!

In a possible new twist regarding Monday night's explosion in Times Square, it looks like police are looking at the possibility that the off-duty police officer who found the package which exploded and injured him may have planted the pipe bomb in the first place. The possible motive? Officer Joseph Rodriguez had been "awarded a pension last week, over his objection, because of a mental illness stemming from the World Trade Center attacks," NY1 reported; apparently Rodriguez was going to receive his official police retirement date yesterday. Police Commissioner Kelly told reporters, "The whole situation [involving Officer Rodriguez] is being examined at this time," and also added that the pipe ("filled with ball bearings and explosive material") could be considered a bomb, though he didn't know "the amount black powder it had in it and how much force it had."

After the explosion at 8:04 p.m., scores of police and firefighters swarmed the area, shutting down 8th Avenue between 42nd and 45th Street for more than two hours. An off-duty police officer was injured as he cleared the area around the bag. He sustained minor burns to his legs and was taken to Bellevue. The Daily News reports that the incident annoyed restaurants, theaters and moviegoers. Additionally, tourists were confused, which any New Yorker knows is no different from the norm.

Gothamist is always interested in New York crime stories, and yesterday's discovery of pipe bombs in Brooklyn Heights makes for a truly confusing case. Take a look at the details and post your hypothesis in comments. The opening of the Times article gives a sense of the strange intrigue: