mayor of new york city just wrapping up a press conference there lots of interested folks. you there see him, he is with officer wayne ratigan and his wife, tina marie. they spoke a short time ago. we will play it for you here on cnn. don t worry, we will get it to you. all smiles in times square with the mayor, officer rain ratigan, his horse, migs, as well, sure he is smiling somewhere, he and his wife, tina marie, have dinner at bluefin in times square. let s talk about. this throughout the day, people have been sharing their experiences in times square with cnn, through i reports, sending videos and crowd of the chaos. one dedicated ireporter gave us a dozen clips of his time at times square. he was at mcdonald s when the officer announced everyone had
train for this all the time. and they have lots of experience. so, the police commissioner either came over to my table unfortunately having a little bit of technical issues with that. this is what people want to hear, how new york city is bouncing back and what s going on here. there was a built of a confusion there, i pardon this is, again, not the it shirt stlaerntd mayor is meeting w i want to tell you this is officer wayne ratigan. and his wife, teena marie and the mayor is going to have dinner with them at bluefin in times square, next to the w there dinner tonight at 7 p.m., scheduled, this press conference, a little bit before 7, so it happened just a little bit late here. so, wayne ratigan, a 19-year veteran of the force, he smelled gunfire from the vehicle when he went toward it and then thinking it could explode any second, he
a reluctant hero, a vietnam veteran that saw something peculiar about a vehicle and now they ve been able to avert a big problem there in new york times square. the other hero is wayne ratigan that you can see here in the hat. he did a lap around the car, saw the smoke inside, smelled gun powder. he sounded the alarm and helped clear the crowded area around the suv. ratigan thought that the car might blow any second. thank you so much for joining us. there s been a lot going on all day long. we ll continue to follow it up throughout the evening. don lemon is coming up next and he ll be talking with an i-reporter in times square when the bomb square happened. he will be showing us dramatic video on his iphone. don will take us to a florida
the secretary of homeland security, offering any assistance we needed. the president called later in the day to say, he wanted to make sure we were getting the kind of aid we need from the fbi and all federal agencies and i assured him that we were with, we have great relations with the fbi, with the cia, with homeland security. as title today as it has ever been, certainly the last eight years and the president also asked me to convey to officer ratigan s the president s personal thank you for keeping us safe. the president and his wife like to come here to new york city and we want them to come back and he says he feels perfectly safe in doing so knowing that people like you that work for the greatest police department in the world. so we are here to have some fun, a nice time, you can see, times square is full, chockablock
looks pretty calm behind you, but last night, very tense. all in all, when you look atint. all in all when you look at what happened, are you fairly certain that once it was known that there was a car bomb that things went as they should have? well, yes. i think it s amazing. it s a good system for new york. first a typical new yorker, a vietnam vet who was a t-shirt salesman noticed the smoke from in the car. immediately knew what to do. a police officer, 19 years training, officer radigan reported it immediately. so the car was gotten too quickly. times square was evacuated quickly and without incident. it s a testament to new yorkers and the new york city police department, which is, as peter king said, the greatest police department in the world. listen, you know, the fact of the matter is, i was thinking about this last night as this started to unfold. new york is a big city, it is a