Cops Nab Odd Suspect in NYC Rice Cooker Bomb Scare

Larry Griffin II of West Virginia was found unconscious in the Bronx
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 17, 2019 9:45 AM CDT
Cops Nab Odd Suspect in NYC Rice Cooker Bomb Scare
This photo released by NYPD shows a person of interest wanted for questioning in regard to the suspicious items placed inside the Fulton Street subway station in Lower Manhattan on Friday, Aug. 16, 2019 in New York.   (NYPD via AP, File)

A rice cooker bomb scare in New York City has led to the arrest of an unusual suspect. After three such cookers were abandoned Friday in Manhattan, triggering a brief panic, police arrested Larry Griffin II of West Virginia sometime around 1am. They found him unconscious in the Bronx and had him hospitalized, the New York Post reports. Police describe him as homeless and emotionally unwell, a sentiment pretty much echoed by a cousin: "Little Larry's a good person. He's got issues, but he don't ever mean no harm or anything," Tara Brumfield tells WSAZ. She says he often picks up items, like tools or a fishing pole, and leaves them somewhere else.

"I've watched him do stuff like that a bunch of times," she adds. West Virginia police say Griffin was charged in 2017 for giving bestiality videos including a chicken to a minor. Yet Griffin's father rejects the idea that his son was out to sow terror: "He's a good kid," he tells the Post. "I worry about him all the time but he's not out to do nothing like that." After the Friday scare, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller said the cooker disposal might have been "deliberate" or simply a man "discarding items he was no longer interested in." CNN notes that pressure cookers were used in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and a 2016 New York City bombing. (More bomb scare stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X