Roundup: Boston bombing suspects had targeted NYC -- Mayor Bloomberg
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E-mail Xinhua, April 26, 2013
Mayor Bloomberg
NEW YORK, April 25 (Xinhua) -- The two Boston bombing suspects had intended to come to New York to detonate bombs at Times Square, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a press conference on Thursday.
In a joint press conference with the city's Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, the mayor said New York was the suspects' next target. The fact is, New York City remains a prime target for those who hate America and want to kill Americans.
The attacks in Boston, and the news that New York City was next on the terrorists' list, shows just how critical it is for the federal government to devote resources to high-risk areas, Bloomberg noted.
Kelly said based on information from interrogators, the two suspects had planned to drive to New York after they hijacked a car in Boston and the remaining explosives were meant for Time Square.
They made the decision to go to New York City in the car, he said, it was a "spontaneous decision."
According to Kelly, the 19-year-old suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators from his hospital bed in Boston that he and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, had decided spontaneously last Thursday night to drive to New York and detonate their remaining explosives, including a pressure cooker bomb and five pipe bombs, in Time Square.
Their plan was foiled after they realized that the vehicle they hijacked was low on gas and had ordered the driver to stop at a nearby gas station.
The carjacking victim escaped and called 911 and their car was intercepted by police. The two suspects were engaged in a gunbattle with police, which killed the older brother.
Kelly also mentioned that Dzhokhar was photographed in Times Square with friends on or before April 18th of 2012 and that he was in the city again in November last year. While it remains unknown if those visits were related in any way to what he described as the brothers' spontaneous decision to target Times Square.
"The New York Police Department Intelligence Division is actively investigating to determine Dzhokhar movements in New York City, as well as whom he might have been with here," he said.
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo was informed of the Boston bombing suspects' Times Square plot in the middle of a planned news conference at his office.
"We talk about the new normal for society in a number of circumstances, a new normal from a policing point of view, from a security point of view is you have to be constantly vigilant and constantly on guard," said Cuomo.
Dzhokhar, who was wounded in the gunbattle, was captured alive on Friday from Boston's suburb Watertown. He is charged with carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others near the finish line of the Marathon last Monday afternoon. Endi
