A small explosive device discovered near an apartment building door in suburban White Plains, New York, set off an hours-long response that drew local and county police, FBI agents and federal explosive experts after residents reported loud booms early Monday, authorities said.
Police said residents first reported the sounds on Odell Avenue around 4:30 a.m., describing what they believed was a transformer explosion. White Plains police checked local transformers and found nothing out of the ordinary before an officer later noticed an explosive device just after 6 a.m. near the door of a small apartment building, prompting additional emergency activity at the scene, according to the AP report.
As the investigation unfolded, city and county police, FBI agents and experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on site for hours, along with an ATF bomb-sniffing dog. Nearby residents were told to stay indoors for a while, and police said no injuries were reported and no property was damaged by the events.
In a statement carried by the Journal News, White Plains Public Safety Commissioner Wade Hardy said the explosive object was not set up for remote detonation. The AP report also said the FBI later declined to provide details of the probe but told the public there was no threat to public safety.
White Plains Police Department said Monday afternoon that it was talking to two “people of interest.” The AP report described efforts to reach the building’s owner as not immediately successful, while investigators continued to work around the device.
Neighbor Yulissa Severino told the Journal News she heard two loud booms during the night and said she has heard similar noises in recent weeks. She said she watched from her balcony Monday as police led two men away in handcuffs, and she described the previous noises as loud enough that she believed someone might “blow up the block.”