Last night, the NYPD and FDNY responded to a call about a "suspicious vehicle" parked outside the Con Edison building on Irving Place between 14th and 15th Streets, a block east of Union Square. The 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera had some gas containers in the back seat. After closing down some streets, partially evacuating a building and having the bomb squad inspect the car, it was determined that the vehicle was not a threat. Oh, and talking to the car's owner helped, too.
The owner said that the gas was for mowing lawns—because that's what he does for a living. He had been attending the Buzzcocks concert at the Fillmore up the street, and by the time he got to the scene, the bomb squad had already blown out his car's windows so the bomb robot could look inside. The Post reports he said, "What happened! What happened! What's wrong? I didn't do anything." The NYPD determined there was "no malicious intent" involved.
The Buzzcocks actually stopped in the middle of a song to ask, "Does anyone have a 1991 Cutlass?" A worker at a nearby Chipotle wondered to the Daily News, "There's so many threats coming to New York. How many more?"
Ever since a smoking SUV—which had a homemade bomb made out of gasoline containers, propane tanks, firecrackers, and non-explosive fertilizer—was found in Times Square on May 1 (it's believed the SUV's owner is tied to the Pakistani Taliban), there has been a jump in the number of suspicious packages reported and it seems like there are more evacuations.
