Authorities in New York City are looking for a man who placed two rice cookers in a subway station during rush hour on Friday (August 16) morning. A passenger discovered the rice cookers around 7 a.m. at the Fulton Street station in lower Manhattan and police began evacuating the station. A third rice cooker was found near a trash can less than a mile from the subway station.
The New York City Police Department Counterterrorism Bureau determined there were no explosives in the rice cookers and gave the all-clear a little over an hour later.
Officials are trying to locate a white male in his 20s or 30s with dark curly hair who was captured on surveillance cameras pushing a shopping cart through the station and placing one rice cooker on a mezzanine and another one on the platform. Police are trying to determine if he was also responsible for dropping the rice cooker near the trash can.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence & Counterterrorism John Miller says the man is "not a suspect, but certainly somebody we want to interview."
It's "possible that somebody put out a bunch of items in the trash today and this guy picked them up and then discarded them," Miller suggested during a press conference. "As you all know, there are people with shopping carts who pick things up on the street and place them back on the street, and that's kind of a factor of urban life."
He added that it is possible the man placed the rice cookers "to create fear and alarm in the public."
Photo: New York City Police Department