NEW YORK — New York City police have removed bomb-making materials from a parked sports utility vehicle in Times Square, including propane tanks and a clock suspected to be a timing device.
Top police spokesman Paul Browne says investigators have also removed gasoline and explosive powders from the vehicle. An officer noticed smoke coming from the SUV around 6:30 p.m. and cleared the streets of thousands of theatergoers and tourists from the landmark.
Browne says police are investigating a report that someone was seen running from the vehicle at some point and are reviewing security videotapes. He says the Nissan Pathfinder’s license plates do not match the car’s registration.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
NEW YORK (AP) — Police found a suspected car bomb in a parked sport utility vehicle Saturday evening in New York City’s Times Square, then evacuated buildings and cleared streets of thousands of tourists in the landmark known as the “Crossroads of the World.”
A mounted police officer noticed smoke coming from the SUV at 6:30 p.m., police said. Bomb investigators found propane tanks, powder and an apparent timing device inside, according to a law enforcement official who wasn’t authorized to release the information and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Police evacuated several residential and commercial buildings and cleared the streets of people. Police were deployed around the area with heavy weapons on empty streets in the heart of midtown Manhattan that normally teem with thousands of theatergoers and tourists.
Some tourists reported hearing a small explosion hours after the car was first located.
Shelly Carlisle, of Portland, Ore., said police crowded into her Broadway theater after the curtain closed on “Next to Normal,” a show on the same block where the SUV was found.
“At the end of the show, the police came in. We were told we had to leave,” Carlisle said. “They said there was a bomb scare.”
The car was parked on 45th Street, and the block was closed between Seventh and Eighth avenues as a precaution, police said. Times Square lies about four traffic-choked miles north of the site where terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, then laid waste to it on Sept. 11, 2001.
FBI agents are on the scene with the New York Police Department, and the matter is being taken seriously, said Paul Bresson, head of the FBI’s public affairs office at bureau headquarters in Washington.
The Homeland Security Department is aware of the situation, but the NYPD has it under control and is investigating, said a Homeland Security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is in progress.
The block that was closed is one of the prime blocks for Broadway shows, with seven theaters housing such big shows as “Billy Elliot” and “Lend Me a Tenor.”
The curtain at “God of Carnage” and “Red” opened a half hour later than usual, but the shows were not canceled, said spokesman Adrian Bryan-Brown.
Katy Neubauer, 46, and Becca Saunders, 39, of Milwaukee, were shopping for souvenirs two blocks south of the SUV when they saw panicked crowds.
“It was a mass of people running away from the scene,” Neubauer said.
Said Saunders: “There were too many people, too many cops. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg left early from the White House correspondent’s dinner Saturday night. A news conference was planned in New York for early Sunday.
In December, a van without license plates parked in Times Square led police to block off part of the area for about two hours. A police robot examined the vehicle, and clothes, racks and scarves were found inside.
In March 2008, a hooded bicyclist hurled an explosive device at a military recruiting center in the heart of Times Square, producing a flash, smoke and full-scale emergency response. No suspect was ever identified.
In December, police evacuated thousands of holiday tourists from Times Square after finding a white van that had been parked there for days without license plates and blacked-out windows. No bombs were found, and police later said they overlooked the van because it contained a parking placard for a nonprofit police group.
Police have spent years trying to crack down on street hustlers and peddlers preying on tourists. But there have been two major instances of gunfire in recent mnonths. A street hustler armed with a machine pistol exchanged shots in December, shattering a Broadway theater ticket window, before police fatally shot the man.
Four separate shooting incidents and more than 50 arrests on a mile-long stretch of Manhattan last month around Times Square prompted the mayor to call the mayhem “wilding.”
Contributing to this report were AP Washington bureau chief Ron Fournier, and Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan and Pete Yost in Washington and Michael Kuchwara in New York.
