As a car and truck caravan of supporters of former President Donald Trump packed Main Street in Montauk, having rolled across eastern Long Island with horns blaring and flags waving, a small explosive was thrown from a white pickup truck, apparently by one of the participants.
Ondine Karady and her husband, Jim Rutenberg, Montauk residents, were driving to the beach to take their dog for a walk when they got stuck in traffic caused by the caravan. They pulled into a parking space on Main Street to wait out the procession, and as they were sitting in the car with the windows open, the device exploded next to their car.
“We are both experiencing ringing and hearing loss [and] Jimmy has gunpowder in his mouth,” Ms. Karady wrote in an Instagram post that day.
“It was a crazy loud bang. I thought it was a gunshot,” she said on Tuesday. Although she did not see the device, she said that, given the noise it created, it sounded like an M-80 firecracker. “You could smell the sulfur. Jimmy was driving, and it went off right near his head.”
They reported the incident to East Hampton Town police, but because the truck had already left, police were unable to investigate further, Capt. Chris Anderson said.