Manhunt continues in bomb mailings
The national terrorist manhunt ramped up Thursday after the latest of 10 pipe-bomb packages targeted two more outspoken White House critics: Oscar-winner Robert De Niro and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Dozens of law enforcement agencies searched for the person or people behind the potentially lethal manila envelopes packed with homemade explosives and delivered in the past four days. Authorities acknowledged additional undelivered packages could still be in the mail, although postal workers had found nothing suspicious by Thursday evening.
“We are investigating all of this with great precision, and I can say with certainty that we will identify and arrest the person or persons responsible for this attack,” said NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill. “There are no current, credible threats to any individual, organization of locations here in New York City.”
An NYPD hotline seeking tips from the public saw a 139% increase in calls after Wednesday’s incidents targeting former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Rep. Maxine Waters, former Attorney General Eric Holder and CNN’s Manhattan newsroom. O’Neill said investigators were “discovering things by the hour” as the investigation continued.
A former NYPD Intelligence Bureau detective-turned-security guard was watching the news in the early morning hours Thursday when he saw one of the packages used to send the bombs — and realized a similar piece of mail had arrived two days earlier at the Tribeca building where he works and “Goodfellas” star De Niro keeps a production office. The ex-cop called the bomb squad and the 1st Precinct, and the device was removed quickly.
The two packages sent to Biden were spotted at separate Delaware postal facilities, officials said. The manila envelopes, each bearing a half-dozen stamps featuring the American flag, were all sent to highranking Democrats and vocal critics of the Trump administration — although investigators had yet to go public with a possible motive.
Time Warner Center was evacuated again around 7:30 p.m. Thursday after a pair of abandoned gift-wrapped packages were found atop a trash bin, said an NYPD counterterrorism source. The center was reopened about an hour later after the packages were found to contain a doll and a toy car, the source said.
None of the explosives, fashioned from 6-inch segments of PVC pipe, black tape and pyrotechnic powder, detonated and no one was injured. The first bomb was found Monday in the Westchester County mailbox of major Democratic donor George Soros, and all the devices were now being examined at the FBI lab in Quantico, Va.