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| Samaritan Thief Alerts Coppers to Terror Van |
| 2008-07-07 |
| He's a criminal, but he 'did the right thing' when it mattered - alerting cops to what he feared was a terror plot the day before the Fourth of July. At about 5 p.m. yesterday, an unidentified thief with a police record broke into a red van that had been parked at 53rd Street and Second Avenue in Brooklyn's Sunset Park for about a month, a source told The Post. He was stunned when he looked inside - it was filled with gas cans and Styrofoam cups containing a mysterious white substance with protruding wires and switches. The street is lined with brownstones, and there's a ballet studio and a small Muslim school. So he drove the van 15 blocks to 37th Street and parked it at a desolate waterfront location behind the Costco store and next to some little-used piers. Then he got out and called a cop he knows from his run-ins with the law. 'He did the right thing,' a high-ranking officer said. 'And he possibly saved a lot of people's lives.' Another source said cops are unlikely to file charges for the break-in. The van had Delaware plates that had been issued to another vehicle. It's not clear when its cargo was put inside. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly joined cops from the Bomb Squad and the anti-terror task force at the scene. Cops shut down three blocks. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #13 And the van's owner is: Mohammad Abdullah. Well, it could be. |
| Posted by: Glilet Tojo8329 2008-07-07 15:15 |
| #12 Think maybe the "thief" had a good idea that an anonymous phone-in tip would have been a waste of time. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2008-07-07 15:08 |
| #11 I'd like to buy the 'thief' a drink for driving a murdermobile 15+ blocks. Stunned indeed. Yeah - and if you check a map you'll see that what he did was to take it to the very end of the driveable neighborhood, in the more desolate direction and totally away from residential buildings or very active businesses. In other words, the farthest he could away from people, without heading into traffic. This guy thought quickly and chose about the safest place in the area to move that thing. Of course, the idea of moving a van with that sort of stuff in it in the first place is mindboggling. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-07-07 14:36 |
| #10 Parked there for a month with bad plates; is there maybe more to this story? Yes. It wasn't a legally plated vehicle idling in a fire zone. That would get immediate attention... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2008-07-07 12:05 |
| #9 I'd like to buy the 'thief' a drink for driving a murdermobile 15+ blocks. Stunned indeed. Parked there for a month with bad plates; is there maybe more to this story? Batman: Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2008-07-07 11:14 |
| #8 Good on the thief for doing the right and patriotic thing. I'm glad the cops will let him go with a warning on this one. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-07-07 09:53 |
| #7 Probably a registered Trunk. Them's been known to be crooks but still patriotic. The other brand, where the dead can still vote, not so much. Would have preferred that Bushhitlermonkey get blamed for a terror attack in the US than save lives. Its all about power for them. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-07-07 09:43 |
| #6 Sounds like a psycho, Chinese variety... A bomb-laden van found on a Brooklyn street by a car thief was wired to detonate by remote control, and had likely been sitting there for more than five months, sources said yesterday. Investigators believe the homemade explosives found Thursday night in the Ford Econoline belonged to Yung Tang, 39, a Chinese national. He has been behind bars since he was caught Jan. 29 in Wallingford, Conn., with nearly identical bombs in his Mazda MPV minivan. "Based on the manner in which the materials inside the van were constructed, it's possibly linked to an individual in custody in Connecticut," said one source. Also found in the MPV were two silencers, four hollow-point bullets and two radio-controlled detonators. Days after that arrest, the NYPD searched his Brooklyn house and found yet anther van - a Ford Explorer - full of similar explosive devices. In May, Brooklyn prosecutors charged Tang with attempted murder for allegedly planting a bomb near the car of a commercial tenant he was trying to evict. The victim lost his foot in the 2002 blast. Sources said the homemade bombs inside the Econoline - made of Styrofoam cups, 10-ounce water bottles, cans of WD-40 and five-gallon jugs filled with gasoline - were rigged to go off via a remote car-door opener. The 53rd Street location is six blocks from the home of Tang's estranged wife, whom he has threatened to kill, according to federal prosecutors. Neighbors of Tang's wife said she had sold the house last week. In papers filed in the Connecticut case, prosecutors said Tang's wife has complained of physical abuse and threats - including one to hurl her out the window of a cruise ship while they were on vacation. Tang's lawyer, George Farkas, denied that there was a connection between his client and the van. "My guy has been in jail," said Farkas. "What that means, I don't know. It makes an interesting news story, but I think he has the alibi of alibis." |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-07-07 08:44 |
| #5 Dude! Where's my van? |
| Posted by: Ebbealing Bonaparte8365 2008-07-07 06:35 |
| #4 Eric: Sometimes I get the feeling that people in DC don't take terrorism seriously, but that people in NYC always do. "people in DC"... Them AIN'T really people in DC Eric.. Nope no f'n way... Washington, District of Columbia: Good Samaritan Thief Alerts Coppers About a Good Samaritan Terror Van.... Turns Out The Good Samaritan Terror Van Actually Killed The Terrorist 5 Weeks Ago... ..It's a Gets Better Ending Tho: Meter Maid arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced for slaking, route fraud and completely missing a Red Terror Van on her route. /wot about the contents?, who parked it there?the terrorist network?, was it a dummy Van? Why was it parked there? when was it parked there? Grrr... |
| Posted by: RD 2008-07-07 04:27 |
| #3 He might be a thief, but he's an American. That's the difference between bad people who are simply bad, and America-haters. |
| Posted by: gromky 2008-07-07 03:34 |
| #2 Somebody either lost their nerve or forgot where they parked their van or thought the cops were on to them. I'd be interested in hearing anything more about this incident, but I doubt I will. I go through every Independence Day waiting to hear of some terrorist atrocity against us somewhere (and I always carry everywhere I go on that day especially) |
| Posted by: FOTSGreg 2008-07-07 02:44 |
| #1 Why is 'D. C.' in the headline? Sometimes I get the feeling that people in DC don't take terrorism seriously, but that people in NYC always do. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2008-07-07 01:00 |