The Latest From Times Square

The Washington Post reports, based on statements by administration officials, that “The failed car bombing in Times Square increasingly appears to have been coordinated by more than one person in a plot with international links.” The owner of the Nissan Pathfinder that was used in the attempted bombing has been identified and interviewed, but apparently is not a suspect.
Meanwhile, with respect to the ubiquitous surveillance video of a guy taking off his shirt at around the time of the attempted attack, emailer Dan Friedman is skeptical, to say the least:

The media is making much of a video showing a “possible suspect” in an “alley,” “furtively” “leaving the scene near where a car bomb was found in Times Square” “shedding a dark-colored shirt, revealing a red one underneath” who then “looks back in the direction of the SUV” that had just caught fire in Times Sq. The (leftist) Guardian in the UK called it a “video of man watching smoking car.”
It all sounds pretty dramatic, doesn’t it? But if you go behind “the narrative” it all falls apart. The “alley” is Shubert Alley, a busy pedestrian mall packed with tourists that runs between 44th and 45th Streets. It’s about (I’m guessing) 75 yards from the abandoned SUV, around the corner and out of the “possible suspect’s” line of sight. It was a relatively warm evening – too warm to wear two shirts. There is a dark SUV parked a few feet from the man in question, and another one in the shot parked across the street. But their narrative doesn’t bother to tell us that neither is the SUV that was carrying the explosives.
I’m a native NYer who knows the lay of the land and deeply distrustful of the media, so I immediately smelled at rat. And a little detective work from my desk chair more than justified my suspicions. But the average guy watching the 10 o’clock news was sure to be misled.

I can’t vouch for what Friedman says, but he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about.

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