While it's not the most important case the NYPD is tackling right now, it's likely one of the more bizarre ones—trying to figure out who was the dummy who put his loaded gun in a hotel chair cushion last week.
The Post heard that the man was a tourist who tried to visit the 9/11 Memorial with his gun—and apparently attempted to enter the memorial by claiming he was a cop. Now the NY Times has a few more details.
Police were able to find the man in various videos from lower Manhattan, from the hotel where he left the gun (the hotel doesn't think he was a guest) as well as by the memorial. The suspect went to the memorial, where he spoke to an employee, and then went to a nearby hotel, stashing the gun:
Then he returned to the line and passed through the airportlike security screening, walking through a metal detector without incident. He spent about half an hour at the memorial, Mr. Browne said, “visiting, spending time just walking in and around the memorial.”
Then the man returned to the hotel. He entered the lobby and went to the chair. He noticed that the gun was missing, and departed unnoticed. Presumably, any police officers nearby did not yet know what he looked like.
After watching the videos, officers tracked down the memorial employee he had spoken to. The man, they were told, had asked “whether law enforcement or police officers off duty were allowed to enter armed,” Mr. Browne said. “He indicated he was from out of town, from the South. He may have indicated the Carolinas.”
Further, the gun was found traced to a Georgia pawnshop.
