Police investigate explosion at the Mexican Consulate

(New York - WABC, October 26, 2007) (WABC) -- Police are searching for a man on a bike -- the suspect wanted for reportedly throwing two homemade explosives at the Mexican consulate on the East Side early Friday morning.

Residents reported hearing an explosion at around 3:50 a.m. Friday morning in front of the building at 27 East 39th Street. When consulate workers arrived at around 9:25 a.m., they reportedly discovered broken glass and fragments from one of the devices.

Like a near-identical attack that blew out a front window at the British Consulate in 2005, there were no injuries. There also was no obvious motive, though investigators were looking at evidence that suggested the two incidents were connected.

"It looks like two very similar instruments were used," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

In both cases, the instruments were fake grenades sometimes sold as novelty items. They were packed with black power and detonated with fuses, but incapable of causing serious harm, police said.

Kelly said the early morning explosion "was relatively small, minimal" -- so minimal that the attack wasn't reported for hours. Apparently, employees working at the consulate didn't even hear the blast, police said.

The commissioner also said a witness early Friday reported seeing someone on a bike near the consulate, located in the middle of East 39th Street between Madison and Park avenues.

The consulate is located between an office building and another building under construction. There are some residential buildings on the street.

Police said there have been no threats made against the consulate, and no one has taken credit for the explosion.

On Friday afternoon, about 50 people who had business at the consulate stood on the corner of Madison Avenue waiting to see if they would be allowed inside. Mexican officials said it would reopen on Saturday.

In the incident at the British Consulate, the explosions took place in the early morning hours of May 5, 2005, when Britons were going to the polls in an election that returned Prime Minister Tony Blair to power.

Security videotapes from the 2005 scene suggested the two grenades were thrown from a distance. Some showed the devices, fuses lit, arching toward the building and landing in or near a cement security planter, police said.

Investigators say the videos also hinted at who may have been the thrower: a cyclist seen circling the block moments before the devices went off. Afterward, a trail of cameras captured pictures of him pedaling north and west about 40 blocks. Then, he vanished.

Police officials said they're also exploring the possibility that the attack was connected to the year anniversary of the death of Bradley Roland Will, a 36-year-old journalist-activist from New York who was killed in Oaxaca while filming a clash between demonstrators and gunmen.

Activists have claimed Will was killed by government troops. State investigators in Mexico arrested two town officials in the killing, but later released them after prosecutors suggested Will may have been shot by a protester.

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