Text size:

Focus widens in Times Square attack

BY ANDREW STRICKLER AND TOM BRUNE | andrew.strickler@newsday.com
tom.brune@newsday.com

11:29 PM EST, March 6, 2008

The search for a bicyclist who bombed the Times Square military recruiting office expanded quickly Thursday as the probe's focus turned to photos of the attack site sent to Capitol Hill and possible connections to previous attacks on two city consulate buildings.

The early morning bombing by a hooded bicyclist, at arguably the armed forces' most visible presence in the nation's largest city, rattled windows and nerves but caused little damage and no injuries.

About 10 congressional offices Thursday received a letter with a manifesto and a photo of a man in front of the recruiting station -- before it was bombed -- with a caption saying "We Did It," Newsday has learned.

In an e-mail Thursday night, U.S. Capitol Police advised all members of Congress to be on the lookout for a 5-by-8-inch manila envelope with two $1 stamps on it that might contain the letter, which the e-mail said has been screened and poses no harm to the lawmakers.

The photo in the letter was the kind commonly sent as a holiday greeting card, showing a white man with thin graying hair in a striped flannel shirt and jeans, The Associated Press said, quoting an unnamed Democratic aide whose office received the letter. The card stated, "Happy New Year. We Did It."

WNBC reported Thursday night reported that authorities were revisiting a recent incident along the Canadian border that may be connected to the bombing.

The incident last month involved four men who tried to flee the checkpoint when Canadian officials attempted to question them at the border, investigator told WNBC.

The station reported that two of the men got away. The men left behind a backpack that included photos of locations in New York City, including the recruitment center at Times Square, sources told WNBC.

In New York, police Thursday released a video they believe captured images of the bicyclist responsible for the bombing, which burst one pane of a blast-resistant glass door and mangled a door frame on the tiny building that's perched on the square's traffic island.

The grainy surveillance video shot from a Broadway building shows a man in a hooded sweatshirt and backpack on a bike on the traffic island at 3:37 a.m. He climbs off the bike and walks toward the office, which is off screen. At 3:39 a.m., the suspect mounts the bike and rides south on Broadway. At 3:40 a.m., a blast of white smoke shoots north into Times Square, enveloping the traffic island for half a minute.

Kathy Wright, 43, was asleep on the 45th floor of the Millenium Broadway Hotel when the blast shook her door.

"I'm just glad that we weren't closer, and no one was hurt," said Wright, who was visiting with her mother from Lincoln, Neb.

Police interviewed a man Thursday they say noticed a cyclist riding slowly in Times Square shortly before the attack.

"What was unusual for him, although it was cold, it was not cold enough to require an individual to have everything covered," said NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly at a news conference. "His whole face was pretty much covered."

Kelly said the explosive was in a metal ammunition box like those sold in Army surplus stores. The bomb was "roughly similar" to those used in blasts at the Mexican and British consulates in Manhattan in 2005 and 2007, he said.

"The box was blown apart," Kelly said. "But we are processing as much as we can to see if there is any evidentiary value." Investigators have not yet determined what kind of material was used or how the bomb was detonated.

One law enforcement source said authorities also were investigating a possible connection to a third case in 2000, when a small explosive packed inside a military ammunition can was thrown at the Barclays Bank building at 75 Wall St. before 5 a.m.

Department of Homeland Security officials said it was unlikely that the bombing was carried out by al-Qaida, because it happened early in the morning. As a law-enforcement official said, "al-Qaida wants body counts."

Police also lifted fingerprints from a red 10-speed bike discovered in a Dumpster outside an office building at Madison Avenue and 38th Street.

"It looks ridable, which makes it odd to throw in a Dumpster," said Carl Mack, an air conditioner mechanic who was working at the building. Mack said a building staff member spotted the bike in the trash bin and was going to give it to a homeless man when someone mentioned that the bomb suspect rode a bike.

Detectives are attempting to track the suspect's movements before and after the blast through surveillance videos, a police source said, and will speak with people known to have disrupted office recruiters, who have been the frequent target of Iraq war protesters.

The Times Square attack appears connected to blasts at the British and Mexican consulates in a number of ways: All involved homemade explosives and each occurred at 3:30 a.m., 3:43 a.m., and 3:50 a.m. A hooded man riding a bike is a suspect in all three attacks.

The attacks also occurred on notable dates, many of them of significance to leftist activists, although their possible connection remains unclear.

Authorities were probing the possibility that the same person has detonated crude explosives made of World War II surplus materials for the past eight years at high-profile locations to send a message.

In Washington Thursday, Capitol Hill police, the FBI and postal inspectors were investigating the letters.

"Within the past twenty-four hours, a number of letters have begun arriving at various Congressional Offices on Capitol Hill," the Capitol Police e-mail says. "The letters contain a reference to the military recruiting office in New York City."

Aides to Long Island members of Congress, and both Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, said they had not gotten one of the letters.

Authorities have not disclosed the content of the lengthy letters, said by sources to be between 10 and 30 pages long.

Earlier Thursday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) sent an e-mail to other lawmakers about the letters, advising them to leave them alone and call police, her spokesman confirmed.

This story was reported by Washington correspondent Tom Brune, Patrick Falby, and staff writers Rocco Parascandola and Andrew Strickler. It was written by Strickler and Brune.