Suspect Charged in FiDi Bomb Scare, Also Wanted in West Virginia

Surveilance video of a man wheeling a rice cooker in the Fulton Street subway station led to the arrest of Larry Griffin in the Bronx. Photo: NYPD

Police arrested and charged the man they say put two rice cookers in the Fulton Street subway station Friday morning, unleashing a bomb scare that tied up rush hour subway service and traffic in the Financial District. 

Larry Kenton Griffin II, 26, homeless and wanted in his native state of West Virginia, is charged with three counts in the 2nd degree of placing a false bomb. Griffin had also dropped off a rice cooker at 16th Street and 7th Avenue that morning, authorities say.

Police say Griffin is the man seen in a surveilance video pushing a rice cooker in a shopping cart in the subway station that morning. The cookers were discovered around 7 a.m. on upper and lower platforms and deemed harmless by authorities, but not before police cordoned off blocks of the Financial District and seven subway lines that go through the station were disrupted.

Seen in a video following his arrest in the Bronx, Griffin appears to be unconscious as medics wheel him from the building where he was found. He was taken to Lincoln Hospital where he recovered from what the Daily News reported was an apparent drug overdose.

Griffin has a “history of criminal activity,” including “possession of a controlled substance involving weapons” and “use of obscene material to seduce a minor,” according to a statement by the Logan County (West Va.) Sheriff’s Office. Griffin has an active arrest warrant from March for his “failure to report and for missing drug screens as part of his pre-trial bond supervision,” the Sheriff’s Office said.

During the investigation in the Financial District, the A, C, J, 2, 3, 4, and 5 subway lines bypassed Fulton Street and police closed John Street, between William and Gold and Fulton Street, between William and Platt. Normal subway service resumed around 9:40 a.m.