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Mayor Michael Bloomberg Thanks Bomb Squad for Averting Times Square Horror

By Michael P. Ventura | May 5, 2010 9:55am | Updated on May 5, 2010 10:05am
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, right, shakes hands with members of the New York City Police Bomb Squad, in New York, Wednesday, May 5, 2010, to thank them for their participation in disarming a car bomb in Times Square last Saturday night.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, right, shakes hands with members of the New York City Police Bomb Squad, in New York, Wednesday, May 5, 2010, to thank them for their participation in disarming a car bomb in Times Square last Saturday night.
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AP Photo/Richard Drew

By Michael Ventura

DNAinfo Senior Editor

MANHATTAN — Mayor Michael Bloomberg stopped by the Sixth Precinct in the West Village Wednesday morning to shake the hands of members of the bomb squad for diffusing an explosives-packed SUV in Times Square.

He stopped by at about 7:30 a.m., before he headed to a busy day in Washington, DC.

Members of the bomb squad took eight hours to render the gasoline and propane bomb packed into a Nissan Pathfinder parked in Times Square safe.

"The bomb squad suited up in hot weather in oppressive protective gear and worked painstakingly from 7:00 p.m. on Saturday to three the following morning to dismantle all of the dangerous parts of the car bomb," NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Tuesday.

"The whole lethal assembly turned the Pathfinder into one big hurt locker."

The mayor's visit came before he headed to Washington, DC.

Bloomberg and Kelly were expected to testify before a Senate Homeland Security committee, and then he had a series of scheduled meetings with lawmakers.