The Guardian reports live on a law enforcement press conference in NYC:
Sweeney is reiterating that the 10 bombs are being analyzed at Quantico, the FBI’s forensics lab in Virginia. He’s also confirmed that white powder in some of the devices, including the one delivered to the CNN offices, does not constitute a biological threat.
John Miller, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter terrorism, says that a retired police officer found the package in lower Manhattan addressed to Robert DeNiro.
“A retired NYPD detective who was awake and watching the news saw an image of one of these devices and it occurred to him that it resembled a package he had screened that had been sent to Robert DeNiro’s offices on Greenwich Street,” Miller said. The retired officer alerted the authorities.
There are several questions they can’t answer, mostly because they don’t know.
NYPD’s O’Neill, responding to press questions: “I’m not going to get into intent”, when asked what he thinks is the motivation of the perpetrator(s) of this campaign.
He describes the package found on Thursday as a “suspected explosive device”.
But emphasizes: “We are not treating these as hoax devices.”
Law enforcement officials in these press conferences try not to give away too much, but here’s some telling points from New York Police Department commissioner James O’Neill.
He makes a point of saying that investigators do not believe the bombs are hoaxes.
He expresses high praise for all the law enforcement bodies involved in the investigation.
And, without any prompting, he praises the media for showing images of the suspect packages, which prompted the retired detective to call the emergency services in the pre-dawn hours this morning because the pictures he was seeing on his TV resembled a package he had intercepted on its way to DeNiro.
“I would like to thank him for doing his job correctly,” O’Neill says and, then, directed at the gathered members of the press – aka the mainstream media – he notes: “Thank you for getting it [the images] out there.”
The word Trump is never mentioned. But the president has made great sport over mocking the federal intelligence agencies and the media.
Just a few days ago Trump expressed his admiration and affection for Greg Gianforte’s violence against a Guardian reporter, violence which didn’t prevent him from being elected as a Congressional Representative from Montana. Correction: the Congressional Representative from Montana. Montana only has the one, because Montana is mostly empty of people. Montana has fewer people than Seattle. Montana’s one Congressional Representative is a confessed and convicted assaulter.
This is America. It’s not good.
Comments
2 responses to “We are not treating these as hoax devices”
I’m curious to (eventually) hear how these aren’t hoax/fake devices. Was the would-be bomber just completely inept?
I half suspect they were not real pipe bombs but the authorities don’t want to diminish them by calling them hoaxes, but maybe time will prove me wrong.
That is Montana. They are good people, but they are clueless when it comes to promoting models who assault other people.
They should collapse nine of the midwestern states into one then we would have 42….the answer to life, the universe, and everything….and there would never be another Trump.