White Plains, New York — A small explosive device was found at the door of an apartment building in a New York suburb after residents heard explosions early Monday, police said.
The White Plains Police Department said it was speaking with “two persons of interest” in the matter Monday afternoon.
No injuries were reported and no property damage was caused from the isolated incidents that occurred on Odell Street in White Plains, about a 45-minute drive north of midtown Manhattan. But nearby residents were asked to stay indoors for a while, and city and county police, FBI agents, experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and an ATF bomb-sniffing dog were on the scene for hours.
The FBI declined to provide details about the investigation later Monday, but said there was no threat to public safety.
Residents reported what they thought was a transformer explosion around 4:30 a.m., White Plains police said in a news release. Police checked local transformers and found nothing out of the ordinary. An officer then noticed the device near the door of a small apartment building just after 6 a.m
White Plains Public Safety Commissioner Wade Hardy He told Journal News The explosive object was not intended for remote detonation.
Neighbor Yulisa Severino told the media that she heard two loud explosions during the night, and had heard similar sounds in recent weeks.
“Those other times, I thought someone was going to blow the block, and it was so loud,” Severino said. She said that on Monday, from her balcony, she saw the police taking two men away in handcuffs.
An attempt to reach the building owner was not immediately successful.