https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEirpeK4X9U
The FBI took five people with possible links to the Chelsea explosion into custody Sunday night in Brooklyn as authorities shut down a busy New Jersey rail station after finding multiple pipe bombs in a garbage can, police and New Jersey officials said.
The weekend trail of terror continued along the Belt Parkway where federal agents nabbed several people of interest with a weapons stash inside an SUV, according to law enforcement sources.
The five taken into custody had come over the Verrazano Bridge from Staten Island. Investigators were trying to determine if the occupants of the SUV were about to drive out of town or take a plane, sources said.
#BREAKING video shows moment bomb robot accidentally detonated device found @ Elizabeth NJ train station. @PIX11News pic.twitter.com/xfO97F2ebm
— Anthony DiLorenzo (@ADiLorenzoTV) September 19, 2016
A device exploded early Monday as a bomb squad robot examined a backpack that appeared to contain pipe bombs near an Elizabeth transit station, Mayor Chris Bollwage said.
A spokesman for Bollwage earlier said the explosion was a controlled detonation, but at a news briefing a few minutes later, Bollwage said the robot was “cutting into the device when it exploded.”
“This was an explosive device” containing as many as five explosives, he said. “Based on the loudness, I think people could have been severely hurt or injured if they had been in the vicinity.”
The explosion shortly before 1 a.m. Monday was the second in New Jersey since Saturday morning. It came as developments continued moving quickly more than 24 hours after a bombing Saturday night injured 29 people in Manhattan. Several law enforcement officials told NBC News that they are concerned that an active terrorism cell with multiple players could be at work in the New York-New Jersey area.
The incident unfolded after two men found the backpack in a waste basket on North Broad Street and Julian Place around 9:30 p.m., the mayor said.
The men took the package “because they thought it was of some value,” walked for a bit, then saw wires and a pipe, dropped the package and notified Elizabeth Police, he said.
Bollwage told reporters the explosives were found not far from a pub near the transit station.
