WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — A small explosive device was found by an apartment building door in suburban New York after residents heard booms early Monday, police said.
The White Plains Police Department said it was talking to two “people of interest” in the matter Monday afternoon.
No injuries were reported, and no property was damaged by the odd events on Odell Avenue in White Plains, about a 45-minute drive north of midtown Manhattan. But nearby residents had been told to stay indoors for a while, and city and county police, FBI agents, experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and an ATF bomb-sniffing dog were on the scene for hours.
The FBI declined to provide details on the probe later Monday but said there was no threat to public safety.
White Plains police said in a news release that residents reported what they thought was a transformer explosion around 4:30 a.m. Police checked out local transformers and found nothing out of the ordinary. Then an officer noticed the device near the door of a small apartment building just after 6 a.m.
White Plains Public Safety Commissioner Wade Hardy told the Journal News that the explosive object wasn’t set up for remote detonation.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
As part of an ongoing investigation in White Plains, several ATF Special Agents, including a Certified Explosives Specialist, a Certified Fire Investigator, and our explosives-detection K9 have been on scene throughout the day, working alongside and in support of the FBI and the Westchester County Police Bomb Squad. The FBI is leading the investigation.
Neighbor Yulissa Severino told the news outlet that she heard two loud booms during the night – and has heard similar noises in recent weeks.
“Those other times, I thought someone was going to blow up the block, it was so loud,” Severino said. She said she watched from her balcony Monday as police led two men away in handcuffs.
An effort to reach the building’s owner wasn’t immediately successful.
