Suspicious Package Closes Brooklyn Intersection for 2 Hours
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
For about two hours yesterday, the busy Brooklyn intersection of Montague and Court streets was closed to traffic because of a suspicious package. A briefcase locked to a fire hydrant on Montague Street brought police to the scene.
Transit buses were evacuated and left parked in the middle of Court Street.
All entrances to the 2, 3, N, and R subway lines at Court Street were closed off as police officers from the 84th Precinct turned everyone away. Firefighters from Engine 224 in Brooklyn Heights hooked up their line, just in case.
A little while after the intersection was cleared, a bomb squad officer in full protective gear approached Montague from the north side. Later a police Emergency Services Unit truck sounded its horn three times, and immediately a controlled detonation was conducted.
The sound of the detonation took many onlookers by surprise. A number of frightened people talking on their cell phones, and lawyers holding stacks of folders waiting to go back to their offices, took a few steps back. Some unnerved spectators gasped, and one woman shrieked, “Oh my God.”
A second later, a small cloud of smoke appeared behind the corner on Montague a block away.
A few minutes later a black briefcase was taken away by a police officer.
After the bustling area returned to normal around 11 a.m., an officer on the scene described the contents of the briefcase as personal belongings and wondered aloud why someone would chain a briefcase to a fire hydrant.
A street cleaner, who gave his only the name Barry, said he had seen a man chain the briefcase to the hydrant but would not talk further, citing the police investigation.
The bomb squad was called later in the day when a suspicious-looking package was found on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. The avenue was closed off for four blocks before police determined that the package was innocuous.
[Separately, a Bronx man was arraigned yesterday over the bomb scare at Pennsylvania Station that forced an evacuation and caused delays in Amtrak service and on subways across the city, according to the Associated Press. Raul Claudio, 43, was charged with falsely reporting a bomb threat. He was arrested Sunday after allegedly hurling a backpack at an Amtrak agent and claiming it was a bomb.]
