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Politics 365

May 5, 2010

African-American vets with disabilities save the day in NYC bomb scare

Duane Jackson, a 58-year-old handbag vendor from Buchanan, N.Y.,
Duane Jackson, a 58-year-old handbag vendor from Buchanan, N.Y.

 

By Kris Broughton

The New York City bomb scare could have been a much bigger story, complete with dead bodies and burning buildings, but two disabled African-American Vietnam vets saved the day. Street vendors Duane Jackson and Lance Orton reacted so quickly when they saw an unattended SUV parked in Times Square that they averted what could have possibly been a tragic explosion Saturday evening in New York’s theater district.

Duane Jackson, a 58-year-old handbag vendor from Buchanan, N.Y., said he noticed the car and wondered who had left it there in a no-standing zone.

“You had a car with no driver,” Jackson said. “There were keys in the car and the car was running.”

Jackson said he looked in the car and saw keys in the ignition with 19 or 20 keys on a ring. He said he alerted a passing mounted police officer.

They were looking in the car “when the smoke started coming out and then we heard the little pop-pop-pop like firecrackers going out and that’s when everybody scattered and ran back,” he said.

Vendor: I ‘dodged a bullet’ in NYC car bomb case northjersey.com

I’ve known a few people who conducted their business on the streets throughout the years. There is a different sensibility about someone who operates a business that has no walls and no roof. In a lot of ways, it forces a business owner to pay close attention to his surroundings, for they have the ability to influence whether or not he will have a profitable day or an unprofitable day.

A state law gives disabled vets free permits to hawk their wares – but in recent years the permits have been harder to come by as the city clamps down on the vendors. Yesterday, elected officials showered vendors with praise.

“A person that sells T-shirts … a person who’s struggling in this recession to make ends meet, this person suddenly was thrust into history and made ends meet for all of us,” Gov. Paterson said at a church in the Bronx.

Times Square vendors Lance Horton, Duane Jackson alerted cops New York Daily News

“There are a bunch of us disabled vets selling here, and we’re used to being vigilant, because we all know that freedom isn’t free,” Duane Jackson told the New York Times. Jackson is president of Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 817.

It wasn’t the first time the 58-year-old Vietnam veteran from Buchanan, N.Y., had been in a dangerous situation on the job. On Sept. 11, 2001, he was selling items on the corner of Wall and William streets when terrorists flew jetliners into the World Trade Center.

Vendor: I ‘dodged a bullet’ in NYC car bomb case northjersey.com

Although there are already the beginnings of discordant rumblings that revolve around who actually witnessed the smoking SUV first – in fact, a third person has stepped forward to claim credit – there is no mistake about the valuable service that these veterans continue to give to their country.