Updated at 5:35 PM EDT:
According to NY Police officials:
…the explosion in Central Park near Fifth Avenue and East 62nd Street was caused by an ‘experiment’ of fireworks or a homemade device. There is no evidence suggesting that the explosion was terror-related.
The victim who was severely injured has been identified as 18-year-old Connor Golden from Fairfax, Virginia. Golden was walking with two friends when he stepped on something and it blew up, according to witnesses.
Police said witnesses told them the man had just stepped onto a rock when an explosion occurred. People in the area said the explosion was heard blocks away.
Police are still trying to determine who the device belonged to. The victim and his friends were cleared, and officers said they were innocent victims. The device had been left in Central Park for approximately one day.
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Earlier today a young man from Virginia, while walking through Central Park, stepped on something that exploded. It is unclear from the news reports so far what the cause of the explosion was. The young man was taken to hospital for treatment as the reports indicate that the explosion may have nearly severed one of his feet. Early estimates are that it was fireworks related, however, the injured man’s friends indicated that they did not have any fireworks with them.
Authorities say the accident is likely fireworks-related, given that Monday is the 4th of July.
There was a bag or a wrapping of what appears to be from fireworks recovered nearby.
Hinds insists that he, Golden, and a third friend with them, Matthew Stabile, did not have fireworks.
“This was definitely not a firecracker. The police were understandably going at us hard asking about firecrackers because the idea that there would be some sort of bomb in Central Park is really scary,” said Hinds.
He said the group had been planning to go upstate to go camping.
As is the case with all of these types of events, the information being released – simply what we (think we) know – is sketchy and fluid. As details emerge over the course of the investigation we should have a better idea of the cause of the explosion.
Keith G
Although it is clearly not the case, if it did not belong to the injured the description is reminiscent of our cluster bomb munitions – a lot of power in an innocuous package.
Mike J
The fact that people at Elie Wiesel’s funeral on E 61st Street heard it caused much conclusion jumping.
Shell
First thought was All that damage from a firecracker. Then remember that some of them have the equivalent of a stick of dynamite.
But..also…how would just stepping on it, set it off?
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: I watched the video at one of the links where they show people coming into the Wiesel funeral and you can hear it go off. It sounds like a gun shot. Watching the three cops reactions was fun. The youngest sort of jumps and turns. The older two just keep looking at people walking by.
Adam L Silverman
@Shell: Someone could have rigged it with a pressure trigger, like a mine, attached to one of the more powerful commercial fireworks. Step on it and it triggers it. Everything from here on is speculation!!!! Set up as a prank or so someone can watch a squirrel go boom. Or someone was intending to make a down and dirty IED. And this could very well be just for the amusement of hurting someone and watching everyone freak out as it could be for any other reason.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
To quote my always ill-informed, reckless AND hyperbolic 10 year old self, “an M-80 is like a quarter stick of dynamite, so if we light it and throw it real fast we’ll be OK”.
Baud
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill:
“Hold my Kool-Aid and watch this.”
Helen
Queens is sooooooo much better than Manhattan! Nobody cares enough to make a statement here. ;)
Ascap-scab
Cluster bomb dropped by Mexican planes, clearly. Trump called it!!*!
JPL
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: When my son was that age, we allowed him to purchase firecrackers. At the time we were returning from NC and SC had a large stand at the GA border. It was still illegal in GA. Anyway, he shot off ten and got bored. They sat in garage storage area, and finally one day, I saw a police man in a supermarket and said asking for a friend, but what would you do with leftover firecrackers.
I hope the info he gave me was correct, because I soaked them and then buried them.
ThresherK (GPad)
If only Rudy! we’re here to wet his pants in panic, er, leadership us.
Peale
Yeah. I didn’t have fireworks, says the Central Park two. They were obviously up to something. I know Donald will take out full page ads calling for the death penalty.
jeffreyw
@JPL:
If you didn’t get a crop of M-80s the next spring he was probably correct.
jeffreyw
Thread needs a good boy!
Adam L Silverman
@jeffreyw: Awwww!
JPL
@jeffreyw: Cute!
JPL
They are giving a news conference.. not an IED… link It was not meant to go off by someone stepping on it..
Gravenstone
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: I had a HS classmate have an M-80 go off in (or very near) his hand. Fortunately the hand was open so he suffered nothing worse than a spot burn and a couple blood blisters. Could have been JPP about 35 years early.
Suzanne
@JPL: I read that they had to amputate his foot. That’s pretty fucked up for a prank.
JPL
@Suzanne: No kidding. The person is in surgery now.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
Just want to throw this phrase out there (again harkening back to 10 year old me):
Yeah, mom would have shit a brick if she knew. She’d probably be angry even now, if I told her.
PaulWartenberg2016
doesn’t seem to have been with a major explosive, if the victim is mostly physically intact (minus the foot and or lower leg).
this isn’t a terror attack. it’s a fireworks gone wrong.
JPL
@PaulWartenberg2016: During the news conference, the person suggested it was homemade fireworks that could have been left yesterday. It was not made to go off, when someone stepped on it.
Whoever did it, might have unknowingly left it behind.
HinTN
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: Just a step up from Chestnut Oak acorns and garbage can lids. Boys WILL be boys.
Adam L Silverman
@PaulWartenberg2016: Yep. The questions that have to be answered is who built it, who placed it, and why. Given the amount of closed circuit coverage in Manhattan, the Midtown Operating Center is likely reviewing footage as we speak.
HinTN
@Adam L Silverman: That big a boom ain’t no misplaced firework.
Adam L Silverman
@HinTN: I didn’t see the press conference and by the time I saw JPL’s link, they’d moved on. What I’ve put up top is from the only updated story I could find on the web. As I wrote in the original post: the information coming out on this is going to be fluid for the first 24 to 48 hours. So expect it to change.
Schlemazel Khan
@PaulWartenberg2016:
That is one hell of a firework that can take off a foot.
We used to tape 2 or 3 M-80s together, put them on the ground & light one then put a hubcap over them. The hubcap would be launched so high we would lose sight of it for many seconds. Then it would appear spinning back to earth. THATS stupid!
We had a piece of water pipe, threaded on one end. One guys older brother drilled a hole in an end cap, we would take the cap off & put a cherry bomb in with the fuse sticking out the hole. Put the cap on & drop a steely down the tube then light the fuse & point it at junk. Drove a steely though an oak door at about 10 feet.
We made a contact explosive by mixing iodine crystals with ammonia. The percipient was OK as long as it stayed moist. Once dry it was set off by touch. We painted it on the feet of school desks. When a kid sat in it it went off with a bang & purple smoke.
I’m sure I would be doing 7-10 if I pulled any of this crap today. But I am still having a problem believing this is a prank
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: The person injured jumped from the top of a rock that appeared to be about 8 to 10 ft off the ground. Would that fall be enough to trigger the explosion. During the news conference it was mentioned, that nothing was found to indicate that stepping on it would trigger the explosive.
JPL
CNN is saying that the victim and his two friends jumped off a rock.
Now CNN has a panel to discuss the incident.
RandomMonster
Some news sources are now using the term ‘homemade bomb’.
No One You Know
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: Those were the days! My dad used to build his own fireworks. We’d go out to an abandoned quarry to set them off. At ten years old, I had my first lessons in inorganic chemistry: potassium was my favorite. Purple fire!
Now we get better ones at the pop up places, but I’ll never forget putting rocket engines into paper towel tubes under a L’Eggs pantyhose cap to make our own celebration of the Space Age. Good times.
debbie
@Mike J:
It’s not too far from the Central Park Zoo either. I’m sure it upset more than a few animals.
Villago Delenda Est
I can say with metaphysical absolute certainty that the device was planted by that Muslim terrorist, the Crooked Hillary Clinton.
NotMax
Of course it was heard blocks away. Concrete canyons will do that.
@Helen
Don’t feel left out.
@debbie
History tidbit: The (in)famous Central Park Zoo Deception.
Amaranthine RBG
@Peale: We’ll need to see a picture of them to gauge their complexion before jumping to any unwarranted conclusions …
SiubhanDuinne
@jeffreyw:
I’m not even a dog person, but every now and then I see one that might just change my mind!
Anya
That poor guy. Whoever did this deserves to be punished.
Emma
So some shyt-for-brains decided to experiment with fireworks, except that this time someone else paid the price.
Gravenstone
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: Bottle rocket flights, upped the ante with roman candles. And a 12 ga. flare pistol.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amaranthine RBG: Unfortunately, this is pretty much the way the MSM decides which narrative they’re going to use.
Gravenstone
@Schlemazel Khan:
I honest to god had a chemistry professor booby trap our lecture hall with that shit one afternoon. Including a spot on the adjacent to my usual desk. My book bag had the iodine stain in it for years following. Added bonus, letting that shit dry in the presence of an organic matrix (i.e. he dipped filter paper in it) makes for a MUCH bigger boom. He decided to give us a pop quiz on electrochemistry (which I hated and still do). Just as I’m starting to remember the subject and make some headway on the quiz, professor takes a meter stick and taps the ringstand holding the loaded filter papers – wham! Sounded like a fucking shotgun going off in the lecture hall. I jumped so hard I damn near ripped my seat from the floor anchors. I just put my pen down, flipped my paper over and glared at him the rest of the period.
Yes, the professor in question was a bit of a pyro. Why do you ask?
donnah
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill:
My younger brother and two neighbor kids had great bottle rocket battles. We lived out in the suburbs, so there were decent-sized yards to run around in, plus garages and fences for shelter and hideouts. A gross of bottle rockets, a Coke bottle as a hand-held launcher, and three bic lighters, and they were off and shooting.
Looking back, it’s a miracle no one got seriously injured. I know it took hours to locate and gather up all the spent rocket sticks.
PurpleGirl
@jeffreyw: Yes, he’s a good boy, and also a cute puppy boy. Love those tufted ears.
Prescott Cactus
@donnah:
Half the fun of the 4th was looking for “duds” on the 5th. It was like an Easter egg hunt for explosives !
PurpleGirl
NY1 had video of the rock the guys jumped off of. It’s quite a large rock, I think I’ve sat on it once or twice. It’s an oddly, irregularly shaped stone. One side is higher and tilted upwards.