After the mysterious appearance of two high-flying white flags fluttering atop the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City raised speculations Tuesday morning, a skateboard-toting youth and four pals are being searched by cops Wednesday, a police source said. The five suspects were spotted crossing the Brooklyn Bridge just 20 minutes before its flags were stolen.
Described to be white and in their late teens or early 20s, the suspects are wanted only for questioning since police have been unable to find any real leads in Day 2 of their probe, New York Daily News reported. Since recorded surveillance video failed to use facial recognition technology due to lack of clarity, the police have been checking other bridge cameras in hopes of identifying the quintet, the source told the Daily News.
Police sources, however, confirmed that the graveyard shift cops who missed the trespassers jumping a locked gate, scaling the two bridge towers and hanging two new white flags will not be getting disciplined.
Since the Brooklyn Bridge is considered to be a high-profile location, four marked NYPD patrol cars positioned on the Manhattan side of the bridge at all times as a counterterrorism measure failed to notice the missing American flags atop the bridge towers until 7:20 a.m., the source said Wednesday.
That's nearly four hours after the lights were dimmed on the Brooklyn-side tower and the intruders started taking down the first flag early Tuesday, cops said. But another source said the "principal job" of the officers was not monitoring the towers. "They're there to watch for suspicious vehicles," the source said. "They're posted where they are because if they need to do shut down vehicle access they can easily do that."
As of Wednesday morning, police had made no arrests and responsibility for the crime had not been owned by any group or individual, according to NYDN. Detectives were working the bridge early Wednesday, questioning pedestrians around 3:30 a.m. in hopes of finding people who regularly use the crossing at that hour.
Since the towers rise 276 feet above the East River, police said that the perpetrators were likely to have experience as climbers, construction workers or both.
