I Love New York

Today we learn that bombs intended to detonate in New York City and New Jersey were disabled by quick-thinking, patriotic bag-snatchers.

Several bombs planted in both Manhattan and New Jersey—among them one that detonated Saturday night, injuring dozens—were inadvertently disabled by thieves. A pressure cooker bomb was left in a rolling suitcase on West 27th Street in New York City, and according to DNAinfo, well-dressed men allegedly took the bomb out of the bag and then placed it in a garbage bag before stealing the suitcase. By removing it, officials say the unidentified thief accidentally disabled the device. Once disabled, authorities could look at the cellphone attached to the explosive and eventually trace it back to New Jersey resident Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, who is wanted for questioning in more than one explosion over the weekend. “Who in this world finds a pressure cooker with a phone and just takes the bag?” a law-enforcement source asked on Monday.

It’s New York, sweetums. Do you have to ask?

Also, per Wonkette: “Protip: Use a just-purchased burner phone for detonating your IEDs, kids. Don’t terrorists even watch The Wire?” I’d add to that, don’t stash your pressure cooker/IED in a nice rolling suitcase.

Earlier Monday morning, in New Jersey, another set of thieves took a backpack on a trash can that had five bombs, which has also been tied to Rahami. The would-be thieves dropped the bag and called 911, likely preventing it from detonating in a crowded train station later in the day. The bag detonated while police were handling it, but no injuries were reported.

I object to calling these patriotic and quick-thinking New Jerseyites “thieves.” Anything left on a trash can is finders keepers, IMO. Of course, it sounds as if Khan Rahami was not the sharpest bomb-maker on the planet, or the five pipe bombs might have gone off and killed our heroes when they dropped the bag. But all’s well that ends well.

8 thoughts on “I Love New York

  1. I guess this terrorist never saw “The Out of Towners!”

    Granted, NYC is not quite as savage (for lack of a better term) anymore as it was back in the days when that film was made, but if you live in NYC for any period of time, you should know better than to leave a new bag of luggage anywhere.

    Thank goodness this guy was a terrorist who couldn’t “BOOM” straight!

  2. Let’s start a conspiracy rumor: this weekend’s bomb attacks in New York and New Jersey were a “false flag” operation by people working to increase our fear of terrorism and elect Donald Trump. Prime piece of evidence: the Manhattan bomb was carried out in the “Chelsea” neighborhood, a coded attack on everything having to do with Clinton. Other evidence can be supplied on demand.

  3. According to the poleece, the skill level on the bomb making was fairly high. Street smarts, clearly a whole other thang. . . .

    When I was sixty five, I fell in love with an actor, and moved to the city, since he clearly was nevah gonna leave. After about a year I asked him if it was odd that the city never once scared me. He said that is *was* better than it once was, but no, he wasn’t either. If I’d only felt safe when I was with him (he’d spent a lot of his career being cast as cops, judges, and drill sargents), that’ make sense, but I felt that way when he was out of town doing regional theatre, or in the hospital, and I was pretty much on my own.

    What’s not to love?

  4. Agreed re: the trash can. And if I found that they were “thieves” because they weren’t white teens or something, well, never mind. (But I am flashing back to the New Orleans photo of the white people “finding” supplies and the black person “looting” them.)

    Even a found bag with no identification is one of those things, you know? I wouldn’t call someone a thief for walking off with it. I’d agree they, technically speaking, stole it, but I wouldn’t call them a *thief* if you see the distinction.

  5. My mind is spinning. All my prejudices about rude, aggressive New Yorkers and New Jerseyans–and I had a father from NYC–are being challenged here. I like that the New Jersey thieves called 9-1-1. What’s the expression? Honor among thieves?

    • I still say the guys in New Jersey weren’t thieves. If you put something on or in a trash can and walk away from it, it’s assumed you don’t want it any more and anyone can have it.

  6. Of course they weren’t thieves. They were probably just low life conservatives with an entrepreneurial spirit who were looking to survive the economic hard times imposed upon them by the upper echelons of the conservative movement.
    Circumstances made me a thief?

Comments are closed.