Bicycle Bomber May Be a Local Anarchist

"A retired NYPD detective who is now a profiler, Ray Pierce, told the NY Times, 'What you have here is a very frustrated individual, someone who is trying to send a message, but it is a very confused message.' The suspect could be a bike messenger, because 'he feels comfortable on the bicycle.'"---Gothamist (3-07-08) as cited from The New York Times (3-7-08)

FOX News (3-9-08) reports:

Investigators believe the bicyclist who bombed the Times Square military recruiting station [on March 6, 2008] is a local man with ties to chaos-crazed anarchy groups, a high-ranking law-enforcement source said yesterday.

..."He seems to be toying with everyone," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity [Full text].

The Gothamist (3-8-08) reports:

The Ross bicycle, in "fairly good" condition, has been traced to the shop where it was sold. The business is currently closed, so the police are trying to find the owner.

The bicycle bomber may have chosen the March 6 date because on March 6, 1970, Weather Underground terrorists blew themselves up and demolished their New York brownstone while making a huge bomb that they planned to use to murder soldiers and their dates at a Fort Dix military dance.

Authorities say that the bicycle bomber may have struck before on other anniversaries.

A small bomb exploded in 2007 at the Mexican Consulate on the first anniversary of the 10-27-06 death of Brad Will, a New York City anarchist who was killed while filming a violent demonstration in Mexico.

According to Brad Will's Wikipedia entry:

Beginning in the summer of 1991, he was a regular attendee at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, the summer writing program of Naropa University. There he was influenced by activist poets Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Amiri Baraka and Diane di Prima, among others, and was a teaching assistant to Peter Lamborn Wilson (a.k.a. Hakim Bey)

...At Naropa, Will participated in a satirical performance art piece designed to mock the Colorado religious right and protest a proposed amendment to the Colorado constitution (Amendment 2, which sought to limit gay rights in the state). Will, who was heterosexual, wedded a gay man in a ceremony conducted by Peter Lamborn Wilson, a Universal Life Church-ordained minister. The mock ceremony included a procession of their wedding party in drag, parading in front of a Promise Keepers event in Boulder [Full test].

The bicycle bomber is also suspected in a 2005 bombing at the British Consulate that coincided with the reelection of Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Authorities are now looking at similar New York City bombings that go back more than ten years.

The Gothamist (3-7-08) reports:

A retired NYPD detective who is now a profiler, Ray Pierce, told the NY Times, "What you have here is a very frustrated individual, someone who is trying to send a message, but it is a very confused message." The suspect could be a bike messenger, because "he feels comfortable on the bicycle."

Also remarked upon was how the bombing took place on the 38th anniversary of the Weathermen's Greenwich Village townhouse bombing. The Mexican Consulate bombing occurred on the anniversary of journalist Bradley Roland Will's death in Oaxaca and the British Consulate bombing occurred on British Election Day [Full text].

The New York Times (3-7-08) reports:

“I read an intelligence briefing this morning that there is a pattern of similarity in the modus operandi, specifically the delivery of the improvised explosive devices to the target,” said Kevin B. Barry, who retired in 2002 as a detective in the New York Police Department’s Bomb Squad and is now an official with the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators.

“The question now is: Are the forensics similar in nature? Are they able to link the three together in any way?” he said. “And, will they declare it a serial bomber if they link the three I.E.D. components forensically?”

...Several analysts said that the forensics of an explosive device can tell investigators much about what they are dealing with. Bombers tend to have signatures.

Mr. Barry described the components of a bomb that investigators “will be looking for.” He said they are: a power source, such as an AA battery or a fuse; an initiator, like the fuse itself or a cellphone or a timing device; an explosive; and a switch.

Another prime piece of forensic evidence would be the ammunition box fashioned into the bomb and any remnants of it.

In this case it was a metal box used for banded machine gun bullets, the authorities said. Mr. Barry said such a device would easily fall apart.

“They will pick up every scrap they can find,” Mr. Barry said. “They might be able to get powder, they might be able to get a fingerprint and they might be able to get DNA, from sweat, for instance, and they might be able to make a match with any of those other two devices.”

Mark J. Mershon, the assistant F.B.I. director who heads the bureau’s New York office, said the physical evidence would be taken to the agency’s laboratory in Quantico, Va., for analysis, where evidence from the bombings in 2005 and 2007 were also sent [Full text].