Posted on 03/24/2002 10:00:17 AM PST by M. Thatcher
A parked van exploded in Borough Park, Brooklyn, this morning as the owner was getting inside. Police are still investigating, but authorities say there are no early indications it was a terrorist attack.
Police say the vehicle exploded around 11:15 a.m., near the corner of 16th Avenue and 42nd Street in the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park. Witnesses told the Associated Press that the man was thrown from the van onto the street and that it appeared part of his right leg had been blown off.
The victim, Sruli Halberstam, an Hasidic Jewish man in his 40s, was taken to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition.
The block is closed off, and a bomb squad is using a special robot to comb through the wreckage of the blast.
Many residents of the Orthodox neighborhood said they are worried the blast may be an attack related to the violence in the Middle East. However, local Assemblyman Dov Hikind said police told him a car bomb was most likely planted as part of a personal vendetta.
Police are expected to hold a news conference soon to release more information.
Check back with NY1.com for more information as this story develops.
For people who have the foggiest idea of what they are talking about, NOTHING about that crash was consistent with a shoe bomb. NO explosion on the cockpit tape, NO explosion witnessed by a passenger on the plane that took off behind it and saw the whole flight, NO small debris fell in Rockaway or in Jamaica bay consistent with a bomb going off in the cabin and blowing small pieces of debris out of the rupture.
It's screamingly obvious there was no shoe bomb on that flight and it does seem even the most fanatical nutters gave up on that one weeks ago around here. At some point, logic and fact will win out, though it will take a while.
You think all mobsters are of Italian decent?
So which is it now, personal vendetta (note spelling -- and you might want to look up the meaning of the word) or mob hit?
Some suspect ME terrorists...
Others suspect vendetta...
Some don't like to think in terms of Jew on Jew crime...
Any of you guys ever hear about the Russian Mafia? Been fishing in any resevoirs in California lately? Have any of you been to Brighton Beach lately? Checked under the subway?
You don't have to be a moron or a bigot to think organized crime when one man is blown up getting into his own van.
These terror alert things from the govmint aren't all B.S. I am sure they are collecting and analyzing threats on a daily basis. There is going to be another terror attack, bet on it. What country, how big, and on what day is a guessing game that will keep the conspiracy nuts going for years. I personally like to think they are just filling the air with noise, and don't have any credible sources just their imaginations.
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