Man Arrested While Trying To Buy Explosives To Attack Times Square, Police Sources Say

[Dennis Donovan]

Source: WCBS

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A man has been arrested after authorities say he was plotted to detonate explosive devices in Manhattan’s Times Square.

Police sources tell CBS2 that the suspect was taken into custody by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes both the NYPD and FBI.

Sources say the man expressed an interest in buying explosives that he was allegedly planning to use in New York; specifically in the Times Square area.

Police then set up an undercover sting operation to catch the suspect when he went to purchase the weapons.

Authorities have not released the suspect’s name, but he is scheduled to appear in federal court at some point on Friday in Brooklyn.

</snip>

Read more: https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/06/07/fbi-arrest-explosives-times-square/

[vlyons]

1. Any Dem who accepts their filthy money is corrupt

nt

[Dennis Donovan]

3. Exactly!

...wait, what? Guessing you meant to reply to this one: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142326074

[OnlinePoker]

4. Was this supposed to be on the Koch story? n/t

[NBachers]

2. Is this legitimate, or is it one of those "Shopping around a crime until someone bites" deals?

[Igel]

7. It'll depend ...

On the name. For many, at least. For others, on what the defendant's lawyer says. For yet others, on the evidence. And for another group, the verdict.

Often the bait won't be offered until it's clear somebody wants to find the bait and there's serious intent already on display. Courts frown upon dangling bait in front of people that haven't shown an interest. Prosecutors don't like embarrassing cases in which the suspect turns out to be some kid who decided Thursday that being a big macho terrorist (or whatever) was cool, went trolling, and was immediately tagged as a suspect by Friday COB--only to find that because he met a girl Friday night he decided to join a club that's completely at odds with terrorist chic just to impress her. Or some guy who for the last 15 years has always been about to do something horrible ... from the basement of his mother's house using his PC AT running Windows 3.1. (I mean, dude, at least upgrade to 3.2!) Not every kid who's sagging is a gang member, after all.

Gauging that interest is probably hard, and to some extent will depend on the agent's ability to divine intent. That, of course, is often influenced by how much the agent needs a plump, juicy arrest, for whatever reason. Perhaps personal, perhaps career-related, perhaps based on some sort of top-down imperative. Agents are human, too, however much we like to dehumanize them. They screw up and show various biases.

But I've noticed (which may be my own confirmation bias at work, coupled with the availability heuristic) that for many, if the first name of the suspect is Billy Joe then it's clearly not entrapment, but if the first name of the person is Ahmed, then it clearly must be. Which is the same kind of problem the agent has: the ability to divine intent, which on the flip side is often driven by the need to show that some other group is either evil incarnate or being wrongly oppressed, sometimes personal and sometimes political.

[MrScorpio]

9. That's usually how these things work out.

[pecosbob]

5. Well, he must not be white if JTTF is on the case

since they seem to have a catch and release policy when white people are arrested for terrorism in this country

[Cartoonist]

6. Calvin

[SoCalNative]

8. Article has been updated with suspect's name

"Sources told CBS2 that Ashiqul Alam was taken into custody by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes both the NYPD and FBI."

[Rustyeye77]

10. And your point is?

You think certain groups want to indiscriminately murder innocent Americans ?

Must be some misunderstanding.

[SoCalNative]

11. No, my point was

that when the article was first posted the police hadn't released the information on the suspect, and someone upthread commented about that.

You need to chill and get out of attack mode.