NEW YORK -- A small bomb caused minor damage to a landmark military recruiting station in the heart of Times Square before dawn Thursday, and police were searching for a hooded bicyclist seen on a surveillance video pedaling away.
The video shows the bicyclist getting off a bike at 3:40 a.m. Thursday and walking toward the building. A minute or so later, the person returned to the bike and rode away. A brief flash and a cloud of white smoke follows.
A bike, believed used in the crime, was later found in the trash on West 38th Street, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
The blast left a gaping hole in the front window and shattered a glass door, twisting and blackening its metal frame. No one was hurt, but Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the device, though unsophisticated, could have caused "injury and even death."
"If it is something that's directed toward American troops then it's something that's taken very seriously and is pretty unfortunate," said Army Capt. Charlie Jaquillard, who is the commander of Army recruiting in Manhattan.
...The military's 1,600 recruiting stations nationwide were alerted and advised to use extra caution, said Douglas Smith, spokesman for the Army recruiting command.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said no official higher state of alert had been issued. "We do get occasional vandals at our recruiting stations," Whitman said. "It's unfortunate but it happens from time to time."
..."Whoever the coward was that committed this disgraceful act on our city will be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
The recruiting station, located near the theater district on a traffic island, is surrounded by chain stores and restaurants and several TV studios, has occasionally been the site of anti-war demonstrations, ranging from silent vigils to loud rallies.
In October 2005, a group of activists who call themselves the Granny Peace Brigade rallied there against the Iraq war. Eighteen activists, most of them grandmothers with several in their 80s and 90s, were later acquitted of disorderly conduct.
This makes me sick.
It truly sickens me when our recruitment centers come under attack.
A year ago, the army recruiting center in Milwaukee was vandalized by "peace" activists.
Iraq War protesters clad in black, carrying torches and wearing ski masks were reportedly setting off smoke bombs and throwing paint as they approached an Army recruiting center on the block, Sgt. Eric Pfeiffer, of the Milwaukee Police Department, said last night.
Someone threw an object through the recruitment center's window and spread what appears to be human waste inside before running off, Pfeiffer said.
Photo/MaryJo Walicki
It's disgraceful that military recruitment centers are targeted by activists.
These protesters have the right to oppose the war. They have the right to oppose the U.S. military. But they do not have the right to claim that they support the troops as they assault them. They do not have the right to be violent and do damage.
The Marine Corps recruiting center at Berkeley has been the site of numerous protests. It's been defaced by Code Pink and attacked by the Berkeley City Council and Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates.
Sick.
The recruitment centers in Milwaukee and Berkeley were vandalized and defaced by Americans. The party responsible for the small blast at the Times Square center this morning is still unknown.
Was today's blast the work of homegrown anti-war activists or was it the work of a foreign entity?
It really doesn't matter.
Haters of the U.S. military are haters of the U.S. military.
It's sad that some of the most anti-American people are Americans. Sad, but true.
________________
Flashback to Madison 1970 and the Sterling Hall Bombing.
Until the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the Sterling Hall bombing had been described as the single most destructive act of sabotage in United States history. Researcher Robert Fassnacht, who was working late in the building, was killed in the explosion. As people protest the current war in Iraq, Bellais says we don't see the element of violence like we did during the protests against Vietnam. "I really do feel, though people could argue with me on this, that the Sterling Hall bombing was sort of the pinnacle of that escalation. Like it kept getting more and more intense on both sides -- the police side and the antiwar side -- so that eventually something was going to have to happen that was big and it happened to be Sterling Hall."
The exhibit at the state Historical Museum on the capitol square examines the bombing itself, the capture of three of the four suspects, and the significance of the event to the antiwar movement and US history. The display features "Free Karl" T-shirts and posters, and an engine fragment from the van that contained the explosives. Bellais says they'll have a book on display into which you can write your opinions about that event.
Bellais says when Karl Armstrong and his brother Dwight got out of jail in 1980, they had a very high "coolness factor" among college students because they didn't just talk against the war, they took action. David Fine was the third person arrested in the bombing, but Leo Burt has never been captured.
In the name of peace, 33-year-old graduate student Robert Fassnacht was murdered in the explosion.
I fail to see the "coolness factor" in that.
The anti-war movement in America has some very dark moments.
Let's call some of these anti-war activists what they really are: TERRORISTS.
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