The E-Files: 1997 UNITED NATIONS LETTER BOMBS INCIDENT

 

A look back at a unique challenge faced by both the Emergency Service Unit and the Bomb Squad

As far as landmarks in New York City go, nothing perhaps is more unique than the United Nations Office. Expansive in its build and significant in its cultural impact, the building is conveniently located in the ‘crossroads of the world’, Midtown Manhattan. More specifically, it is located in the confines of the NYPD 17th Precinct.

In 1997, relative innocence defined both New York City and America. Though touched by terrorism in 1993 during the bombing of the World Trade Center, New Yorkers didn’t seem to pay the threat of terror too much mind. They didn’t have much reason too then and in the mid 90’s, the city was in the midst of a golden age with crime on the decline and an economic uptick to match.

On January 13, 1997, a frigid Monday in the city, the crossroads would be the UN but not for the reasons they had in mind as New Yorkers got a reminder on the threats their metropolis were vulnerable to. Days prior, popular Arab newspaper Al-Hayat (defunct as of March 2020), known for publishing op-eds from all side’s of the Middle East’s perpetually volatile political sphere had run one opinion piece in particular that angered a radical contingent that saw it fit to respond not with a counter editorial but rather bombs in the form of tightly seal envelopes.

With the first scare having occurred 11 days earlier on January 2 at the Arabic paper’s Washington, D.C. office, reporter Raghida Dergham, based at the paper’s New York City office located in the UN, alerted security to the possibility of a similar incident potentially unfolding there as well. Already alert when sifting mail due to the highly charged political environment in which they work, that alertness kicked into overdrive upon Dergham’s warning. Soon after, the first bomb was discovered.

Over in Greenwich Village at the offices of the NYPD Bomb Squad located on the second floor of the 6th Precinct, Detectives Mike Murray and Rick Vergara got the call to handle that device in particular. Safely disposing of it, they’d return to the office but not before the call for a second device came in. This time, it’d be Detectives Paul Yurkiw and Rich Teemsma who’d head down to the scene.

Having been on duty since 3:30 in the afternoon of the previous day, Detective Teemsma recalled: “When we arrived, we heard about the day tour handling the first job…we were hoping we’d get a little lucky and there wouldn’t be any more but we weren’t that lucky and a little while later we get a call for a second device.”

On this day, Detective Yurkiw, who arrived to the Bomb Squad in 1993 after previously serving 7 years in Emergency Service primarily in Truck 8, would be the lead investigator with Detective Teemsma, also a former ESU Officer and also arriving to the Bomb Squad in 1993, serving as Yurkiw’s backup.

What would make this render safe operation especially difficult was the fact that it would occur underground. Open air areas often aid operations of this sort due to the amount of space that’s available. Not so much in a confined environment. Especially an underground parking garage where this operation would take place. Yet that’s exactly what Yurkiw, Teemsma, Murray and Vergara were up against.

Soon after, Detective Don Sadowy, a former Marine, who prior to joining the NYPD in 1980 had worked at the United Nations, and in 1997 was the intelligence coordinator for the Bomb Squad made his way to the scene. “The U.N. had an office for Al-Hayat and there was an office in Long Island City (Queens)”, recalled the then 17-year NYPD veteran, “while I was there (at the U.N.), I had a couple guys come over to me privately from U.N. security and tell me they had five machines for X-Rays. Out of the five machines, two of them don’t work! They’re in other buildings within the U.N. and across the street at the U.N. DC building.”

Though the operation had grown more complicated due to these circumstances, the Bomb Squad would catch a break when the building was evacuated, however the squad would now have to search every desk and office within 18 acres worth of space. Suffice to say, they were going to be there a while. As the search progressed, it’d yield three more devices.

While Sadowy was summoned to 1 Police Plaza, Yurkiw and Teemsma were yet again tasked with a render safe operation. Joining them this time would be Detectives Jeffrey Oberdier, Charlie Hill, and Kevin Barry. Needing further assistance, they’d call in for the equalizer in the form of the Emergency Service Total Containment Vessel (TCV).

Now its own singular vehicle but back then attached to the back of an REP and driven to the scene of confirmed devices, the TCV has been an existence since the 1940s and with the capability of carrying up to 30 pounds of explosives, the vessel allows for the safe removal of explosives from the scene, to the NYPD Bomb Squad’s range in the Rodman’s Neck section of the Bronx.

Even if the devices could be defused in the same location in which they were originally found, the TCV is never a bad plan B to have. As former E-Men, it’s an option Detectives Yurkiw, Teemsma, Barry, and Hill weren’t going to do without. Arriving from Uptown Manhattan’s Truck 2, the E-Men stationed it outside the building, ready to deploy as soon as their Bomb Squad brothers said the word. Defusing the second device with a water cannon specifically designed to disrupt the fuses of a device, the men, now joined by Detectives Dan McNally and Robert Treston, another former E-Man, neutralized the threat.

With devices two and three out of the way, the seemingly endless clearing of the mail continued. Just before midnight, a fourth device would rear its ugly head. This time around, Barry, a longtime Truck 1 officer before his 1983 transfer into the Bomb Squad and Oberdier, an EOD man in the Air Force before his 1995 arrival, took care of business and once again, made light work of a formidable advisory in the form of quite literally, an envelope of death. In the end thankfully, no one in New York was hurt. To this day, those who sent the devices remain unknown.

Despite the historic tensions in the Middle East and the fact that this latest conflagration not only played out in New York City but at perhaps its most notable landmark, press attention would after the first week die off. The reasons somewhat obvious. For starters, you don’t want copycats. And furthermore, the U.N. like most companies or locations of note, could do without negative press.

Still, nearly 27 years later, the job remains a unique moment in a time of relative innocence. The date of January 13, 1997 may not carry the same historical weight dates like February 26, 1993 or September 11, 2001, but its significance to New York City’s history of ongoing vulnerability to terrorism makes it worth remembering. It was another test for both the E-Men and Bomb Squad. They passed as they always do. There’d be however many more to follow.