An hourslong standoff between the police and a man in a sport utility vehicle in Columbus Circle in Manhattan that disrupted traffic and subway service ended peacefully Thursday morning, when officers took the man into custody, the New York Police Department said.

At one point the man, Hector Meneses, 52, of Elmhurst, Queens, put on a red plastic helmet and said to the police negotiators, “I have a bomb strapped to me and I want to die,” William Aubry, the assistant police chief in charge of the Manhattan South detective squad, said at a news conference after Mr. Meneses was taken from the scene.

The police used a robot to communicate with Mr. Meneses and to look inside the vehicle, William J. Bratton, the police commissioner, said. After the bomb squad had determined that the vehicle was safe, police officers moved in to arrest Mr. Meneses around 7:45 a.m., using the robot to break a window on the vehicle and use pepper spray on Mr. Meneses, the police said.

The police said Mr. Meneses was taken to Mount Sinai West Hospital for an evaluation.

Inside the vehicle, the police found 19 LED-type lights, as well as a pot with a cover that police believe was meant to simulate a homemade pressure-cooker bomb, Chief Aubry said.