"Mr. Shields, who said he grew up with Mr. Cohen, continued: “He said, ‘Are you in the building?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘You better get out ASAP.’ That’s how I knew to get out, otherwise I’d still be in there.”
They were breaking into Cohen's office around this time? Why was Cohen texting Mr. Shields? Did he know it was setup to be a distraction? Was it supposed to be much worse, but partially thwarted?
"Video footage showed flames bursting through broken windows."
The only way that is possible is if there was an explosion.
"More than 200 firefighters responded to the fire, the cause of which was unknown, the commissioner said."
200 firefighters for one apartment fire? The cause wasn't yet known? Or wasn't yet stated?
“You could smell the smoke and you could hear things falling like through the vents,” he said. “It just smelled like sulfur.”
When does a fire smell like sulfur? What does it smell like when a bomb goes off?
"everything was falling out of the window, and it reminded me of 9/11.”
From an apartment fire? Or from a bomb?
"The man, Todd Brassner, was in his apartment on the 50th floor at the time of the fire, which was reported around 5:30 p.m., the police said. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead."
He could not get out of his apartment? Was he drugged? Killed? Was a bomb planted that he didn't know about?