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Detectives from both agencies took Philip Ngom into custody at his West 116th Street residence in Manhattan on Thursday, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown and PAPD Chief Security Officer Thomas Belfiore announced this afternoon.
Ngom called 911 eleven times between June 9 and last Wednesday — sometimes more than once a day — and “stated that he was planting chemical bombs and/or explosives containing nails at Kennedy Airport,” Brown said.
In one call, at 7:13 a.m. June 18, Ngom said he “had three chemical bombs in a BMW and would drive the vehicle to Kennedy Airport,” the attorney general said.
“I am going to kill a lot of people at the airport today. It’s a pleasure to kill,” he was recorded as saying.
Brown said Ngom called back at 8:02 the same morning, saying: “Muslims are on their way to place a bomb at JFK today.”
In a June 21 call, Brown said, Ngom said it was his “mission” to kill police officers.
Three days later, he was recorded telling a 911 operator: “I have a naked police officer in the basement….I am going to kill a lot of officers tonight. I have three bombs I want to place at JFK Airport.”
“Fortunately, these bomb threats were a hoax,” Brown said today. “However, those responding personnel, had no way of knowing that fact at the time. I thank them for their professionalism in the face of adversity.”
Belfiore added that, in addition to “undue alarm and disruption to thousands of air travelers,” the calls “resulted in extensive police resources being wasted to investigate phony threats.”
Ngom, who had a trio of minor offenses on his record for assault, theft and trespassing, was being held on $750,000 bail on 11 counts each of first-degree falsely reporting an incident and making a terroristic threat.
The case was investigated by Port Authority Police Department Detectives John Reilly and Shawn Russell.
Assistant District Attorney Catherine C. Kane, chief of Brown’s Airport Investigations Unit, is prosecuting the case.
MUGSHOT: Courtesy PORT AUTHORITY PD
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