NEW ROCHELLE, NY — New Rochelle Police Detective Captain Joseph Schaller confirmed Tuesday a story first reported on Talk of the Sound that there were 3 incidents of explosions over the past 2 weekends.
Schaller said the explosive devices used were “significant enough that would hurt someone in the immediate area”.
Schaller confirmed an incident on February 22nd around 11:30 pm near Mayflower Avenue, a second incident on February 23rd in the children’s park at the corner of North Avenue and Eastchester Road and a third incident on March 1st near Mayflower Avenue.
“Officers responding up there they found a metal garbage can destroyed in the explosion,” said Schaller. “The Westchester County Bomb Squad was notified, they came down, retrieved debris and evidence from the explosion and brought it up to the lab for further investigation.”
Schaller said a Critical Incident team went to double-check the Summit Avenue parking lot on the Iona campus near Mayflower Avenue had found evidence of 2 explosions in the parking lot. He said they found charring and debris and remains. Officers that had first responded had not found anything.
Schaller also confirmed our report that the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was involved in the case.
After the New Rochelle Police confirmed that two of the detonations occurred on the college campus, Charles J. Carlson, Vice Provost for Student Life at Iona College, sent an email notification to Iona students and staff, as required under The Clery Act.
To all members of the Iona Community,
I am writing to advise all members of the Iona Community of three recent incidents involving the detonation of explosive devices in the City of New Rochelle. There was a confirmed detonation on Saturday, February 23, 2013, at approximately 10:05 p.m. in the vicinity of the Children’s Library at Eastchester Road and North Avenue. There was another incident on Friday, March 1, 2013, at approximately 11:15 p.m. that took place in the vicinity of Mayflower Avenue and Mt. Joy Place.
This afternoon, members of the New Rochelle Police Department and the Westchester County Police Bomb Squad conducted an investigation in the Summit Avenue Parking Lot. They identified it as the location where two detonations took place. At this time they are uncertain as to the type of explosive that was involved. There have been no injuries reported to date in reference to these incidents, but needless to say we are extremely concerned with the potential risk for injury to individuals and damage to personal property.
This is an ongoing police investigation. Anyone with any information or who observes anything that appears to be suspicious should immediately notify the New Rochelle Police Department at 914-654-2300.
Charles J. Carlson
Vice Provost for Student Life
EDITOR’S NOTE: For this report Talk of the Sound relied on video from the Journal News.
Talk of the Sound was denied access to the press conference, the first presser since we led the charge in defeating a pension padding plan.
Readers can draw their own conclusions as to whether there is any connection between our efforts on defeating the NRPD Reorganization Plan and being barred from the NRPD press conference.