Police in New Jersey have detonated a “suspicious package” near a train station in the city of Elizabeth, following on from an earlier explosion in the New York neighbourhood of Chelsea that injured 29.
The train station in Elizabeth was shut down and all train activity in the area suspended after unnamed patrons of the station reportedly found a suspicious package containing as many as three pipe bombs inside a curbside trash can. The men reportedly noticed the suspicious package in the bin and took it out, thinking it might have contained items of value to them. Upon realising the seriousness of the situation, authorities were alerted.
No one was injured in the blast, which occurred at around 1am Monday local time, and was set off by a police bomb disposal robot that triggered the device and caused a “massive” explosion that appeared to catch police on the scene off guard, sending them scattering. The station itself had been evacuated prior to police commencing the operation, and local roads and businesses in the area had been ordered to close down.
Christian Bollwage, the Mayor of Elizabeth, stated that the blast was not a controlled explosion, and that police had found 5 devices inside a backpack.
Meanwhile, FBI officials conducting a traffic stop have reportedly taken 5 people in for questioning after pulling over a vehicle of interest to the investigation in Brooklyn.
New York State Senator Marty Golden confirmed information relayed to him by the FBI and the NYPD in an Instagram post a few hours ago.
Local FBI agencies, however, were at pains to stress that while the individuals were helping with the investigation, no charges had been formally handed down at this stage.
Though the incidents are extremely similar, authorities have thus far been hesitant to officially link the two incidents in New York and New Jersey, which occurred within 24 hours of each other.
Outwardly, the official line of talk seems to be split on whether or not to call the incident “terrorism” outright, and those that have done so thus far have stressed it is not related to “international terrorism.”
Earlier, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is in New York at the moment, praised the work of New York City authorities and stressed the need for resilience.
“The one thing we can’t do is let people who seek to do us harm, whatever their motivations may be, to coward us. We defy them by going about our lives in the normal way.”
Photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty.
