NY Times
Around 12:30 on a Monday afternoon about seven weeks ago, Faisal Shahzad pulled into the parking lot at the Phantom Fireworks store in Matamoras, Pa., said Bruce Zoldan, the owner of the company.
Mr. Shahzad hopped out of his vehicle and walked into the 20,000-square-foot store, Mr. Zoldan said, offering an account of Mr. Shahzad’s visit based on a review of security videos and conversations with employees.
The company requires every customer to register with a database, used for marketing purposes. Mr. Shahzad showed a clerk his Connecticut driver’s license, but, when signing a registration form, he inverted the order of his name, writing his first name as Shahzad and his surname as Faisal.
Mr. Shahzad, clad in jeans, was the only customer in the store, and he spent 30 to 45 minutes browsing in the aisles, calmly examining various types of fireworks. There were about 20 clerks in the store, and he declined an offer of help from an assistant manager in the aisles.
Mr. Shahzad eventually took his items to a cashier. He asked a few questions — the nature of which Mr. Zoldan would not disclose, saying the Federal Bureau of Investigation had asked him not to — headed back into the aisles and returned with more merchandise.
Mr. Shahzad eventually settled on a package of M-88 Silver Salute fireworks, a Phantom Fireworks brand that sells for $10.99 for a 36-count box. He also bought a red canister-type firework that, when ignited, flies several feet into the air and bursts into colors while emitting popping sounds.
A small red cylinder, sawed in half, would later appear in a photograph of an F.B.I. technician scouring Mr. Shahzad’s home in Connecticut after the failed Times Square car bombing last weekend.
The M-88 firecrackers are about an inch and a half long and an inch in diameter. Each contains roughly 50 milligrams of explosives, about the size of one-quarter of an aspirin, which Mr. Zoldan said was the maximum allowed in consumer fireworks.
Mr. Shahzad spent several minutes chatting with the cashier and returning to the aisles before settling up with his purchases, about five items, including the M-88s, and leaving the store.
If Mr. Shahzad hoped that M-88 fireworks would ignite one another, he was in error. The M-88s are about 98 percent paper, Mr. Zoldan said, and each fuse has to be ignited individually.
“He certainly didn’t know what he was doing with the igniter part,” Mr. Zoldan said by telephone Wednesday from the company’s headquarters in Youngstown, Ohio.
“One going off won’t set off another one; that’s why they’re legal for consumer firework sales,” Mr. Zoldan said. “He miscalculated. Thank God.”
Mr. Zoldan said he was driving back from the Kentucky Derby with his son on Saturday when he learned about the attempted bombing on the radio. He called the chief of national security for the company, Bob Kroner, who Mr. Zoldan said was a retired special agent for the F.B.I.
“Bob, I have a gut feeling that if those fireworks were consumer fireworks, they could be Phantom Fireworks,” Mr. Zoldan said.
Mr. Kroner contacted the F.B.I. and got a call back about 18 hours later asking the company to identify its eastern Pennsylvania showrooms. The F.B.I. also identified the firecrackers used in the attempted bombing as M-88 Silver Salutes.
The company, which operates 55 pyrotechnic stores across the country, looked through its intake records and found Mr. Shahzad’s name. On Tuesday, the company found the security video showing him making his purchases and, while the cashier was ringing him up, gazing calmly in the direction of the security cameras.
Mr. Shahzad hopped out of his vehicle and walked into the 20,000-square-foot store, Mr. Zoldan said, offering an account of Mr. Shahzad’s visit based on a review of security videos and conversations with employees.
The company requires every customer to register with a database, used for marketing purposes. Mr. Shahzad showed a clerk his Connecticut driver’s license, but, when signing a registration form, he inverted the order of his name, writing his first name as Shahzad and his surname as Faisal.
Mr. Shahzad, clad in jeans, was the only customer in the store, and he spent 30 to 45 minutes browsing in the aisles, calmly examining various types of fireworks. There were about 20 clerks in the store, and he declined an offer of help from an assistant manager in the aisles.
Mr. Shahzad eventually took his items to a cashier. He asked a few questions — the nature of which Mr. Zoldan would not disclose, saying the Federal Bureau of Investigation had asked him not to — headed back into the aisles and returned with more merchandise.
Mr. Shahzad eventually settled on a package of M-88 Silver Salute fireworks, a Phantom Fireworks brand that sells for $10.99 for a 36-count box. He also bought a red canister-type firework that, when ignited, flies several feet into the air and bursts into colors while emitting popping sounds.
A small red cylinder, sawed in half, would later appear in a photograph of an F.B.I. technician scouring Mr. Shahzad’s home in Connecticut after the failed Times Square car bombing last weekend.
The M-88 firecrackers are about an inch and a half long and an inch in diameter. Each contains roughly 50 milligrams of explosives, about the size of one-quarter of an aspirin, which Mr. Zoldan said was the maximum allowed in consumer fireworks.
Mr. Shahzad spent several minutes chatting with the cashier and returning to the aisles before settling up with his purchases, about five items, including the M-88s, and leaving the store.
If Mr. Shahzad hoped that M-88 fireworks would ignite one another, he was in error. The M-88s are about 98 percent paper, Mr. Zoldan said, and each fuse has to be ignited individually.
“He certainly didn’t know what he was doing with the igniter part,” Mr. Zoldan said by telephone Wednesday from the company’s headquarters in Youngstown, Ohio.
“One going off won’t set off another one; that’s why they’re legal for consumer firework sales,” Mr. Zoldan said. “He miscalculated. Thank God.”
Mr. Zoldan said he was driving back from the Kentucky Derby with his son on Saturday when he learned about the attempted bombing on the radio. He called the chief of national security for the company, Bob Kroner, who Mr. Zoldan said was a retired special agent for the F.B.I.
“Bob, I have a gut feeling that if those fireworks were consumer fireworks, they could be Phantom Fireworks,” Mr. Zoldan said.
Mr. Kroner contacted the F.B.I. and got a call back about 18 hours later asking the company to identify its eastern Pennsylvania showrooms. The F.B.I. also identified the firecrackers used in the attempted bombing as M-88 Silver Salutes.
The company, which operates 55 pyrotechnic stores across the country, looked through its intake records and found Mr. Shahzad’s name. On Tuesday, the company found the security video showing him making his purchases and, while the cashier was ringing him up, gazing calmly in the direction of the security cameras.
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