The arrest of a machete-wielding suspect ended on Wednesday in a massive NYPD operation outside of Harlem’s 25th Precinct on Wednesday after what authorities believed to be a pipe bomb was discovered directly outside of the station, police brass said.
Photo by Dean Moses
Harlem bore witness to a chaotic pipe bomb scare following a machete attack on Wednesday afternoon that sparked a massive police response.
According to Chief Ruel Stephenson, the incredible event unfolded just before noon when two 50-year-old cousins in a vehicle approached cops at the 25th Precinct, located on 119th Street and Lexington Avenue, with the passenger stating that he had been attacked with a machete.
“The assault consisted of the driver hitting [the victim] in the back of the head with a machete causing bleeding,” Lieutenant Eloise Walter said.
Police swooped in and took the driver into custody, but not before he told cops that he was armed with an explosive device.
After making the arrest, cops called in backup from the bomb squad to deal with what law enforcement sources described as a pipe bomb with aerosol cans taped to it.
“It’s not small. If it functioned and was able to function as designed, what we would say is that it was capable of causing death or serious physical injury to anyone in proximity,” Lieutenant Mark Torre said.
Both the NYPD and the FDNY locked the street down and spent several hours investigating the apparent bomb before removing it.
A heavily armored member of the Bomb Squad could be seen using a pole to hook the device and place it into a black container before loading it into the back of a truck. The squad brought the devices to the NYPD base at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx, where it will be analyzed and dismantled.
“Once it’s disassembled, we can see exactly what it consists of what its contents are or not. And from that, that’s when we could give an expert opinion of [whether it would] have been able to…
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