'Always be aware' NYC photographer who found pressure cooker bomb and called 911

Residents in the bedroom community of Linden, New Jersey, heard gunfire and commotion Monday morning. Police were engaged in a shootout with a suspect connected to homemade bombs. In the end, Ahmad Rahami was injured, but alive — and arrested by police.

It marked the end of a stressful weekend with police locating bombs in garbage bins and residential areas. Two were located in New Jersey, another two in New York City. 


In Manhattan, one of those bombs went off on Saturday night and injured 29 people. Four blocks away, on West 27th Street, there was reportedly another bomb, ready to detonate.

But thanks to some quick thinking by a local resident, a disaster was averted. Jane Schreibman is a photographer who lives on West 27th Street in Manhattan. Schreibman spoke with As It Happens host Carol Off about how she spotted the second bomb and alerted police. Here is part of their conversation.

Carol Off: How did you first learn that there had been an explosion in your neighbourhood?

Jane Schreibman: A friend called me at about 10 o'clock and said "Jane! How are you?" I said, I'm fine. Why shouldn't I be? And she said, "Because there's been an explosion at 23rd and 6th." I said, "I'll call you back. I want to see what happened." I ran out and, on my way to see what had happened, I passed on my street, about 15 yards from my door, a pot on the sidewalk with wires coming out of it.


CO: What did you think when you saw that?

JS: I thought this is like a kid's experiment — a kid's science experiment. On my street, on the weekend, they throw out a lot of junk. So I'm used to seeing unusual objects on my street. It turned out to be a pressure cooker and it had wires coming out of it. The wires were tapped. It turns out they were taped to a cell phone, but I didn't know what they were taped to because it seemed to be covered in tape.

CO: So at first you thought it was a just some kid's science experiment or some junk tossed out.  At what point did it strike you that this was something that you should take a second look at?

JS: I went on my way to try to find out what happened and the roads were blocked at 25th Street. I milled around with the people there, but something lingered in my mind, like, "That was a pretty weird object and, since there was a bomb on 23rd Street, it is possible that that too could be a bomb. I better go take another look." So I came back home and I stopped in front of this pot. It was still there and . .. it wasn't garbage night and it was in front of an office building, not a residential building, at which point I went upstairs and called 911 . . . But I still didn't think it was a really a bomb. I just thought better safe than sorry.


CO: And what did they say to you when you reported it?

JS: They said, "This is a high priority. Someone is on their way." I went downstairs and I suppose it was state troopers who had gotten there by then — two minutes. It was no time at all and they shouted, "Run! Get off the block!" Then I knew that they were taking it seriously. So then I started to think I did the right thing by calling.

CO: Has the full impact of this sunk in yet?

JS: I don't think it has. I haven't really had time to reflect on everything. What I'll take out of this is to always be aware and look at things, have an extra antenna out. I'm not one of those people that walk down the street with headphones. It sort of makes me scared to see people doing that because it means they are in their own world and they are not looking around the world that they are in.


CO: And the fact that you could have been hurt if the bomb went off . . . 

JS: I don't really think about that. The bomb didn't go off. I think one of the things is that the physical appearance of this bomb was so ridiculous. It didn't look like a real thing in my imagination. I think that might be something that is preventing me from experiencing fear or maybe I just don't want to. What good will that do, to be scared?