Two cousins who were arguing outside a Manhattan police station on Wednesday afternoon were arrested in possession of a potentially explosive device and a machete, authorities said.
The two men stopped their car in front of the 25th Precinct in East Harlem, where the driver told nearby officers just before noon that he had been hit in the head by his machete-wielding cousin, who was also in the car, said NYPD Deputy Chief Ruel Stevenson.
Police initially arrested his cousin, who was sitting in the passenger seat, Stevenson said, but then the driver told police there was an “explosive” in the car, prompting the evacuation of the police station on East 119th Street near Lexington Avenue and the deployment of bomb squads and emergency responders.
An unknown device was later found and secured, Stevenson told reporters at the scene.
Bomb squad commander Mark Tory called it a “potentially viable improvised explosive device.”
“It will be clearly explained whether it will function as designed, explode or look like a bomb but is not actually a bomb,” Torre said.
Torre told reporters that investigators were testing the device.
Meanwhile, police say both cousins have between 10 and 20 arrests on their records.
NYPD Deputy Chief of Police Jason Huerta said the device’s owner, who was also arrested for allegedly hitting his cousin in the back of the head with a machete, was experiencing “emotional issues” and “appeared to be speaking an endless stream of incoherent thoughts and delusions.”
“And there’s no reason to believe he was heading to any particular location,” he added.
Charges are pending against the cousins, but police had not yet released their identities Wednesday night.
