Edited by: TJVNews.com
A gunman in a gas mask and a construction vest set off a smoke canister on a rush-hour subway train in Brooklyn and shot at least 10 people Tuesday, authorities said. The AP reported that police were scouring the city for the shooter and a rental truck. The van was found by police in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn, near Kings Highway and West 5th Street, late on Tuesday afternoon.
As of early Tuesday evening, the AP reported that NY Police Chief of Detectives James Essig said investigators weren’t sure whether a man, identified as Frank R. James, 62, had any link to the subway attack. Other reports claimed that he was a “person of interest” in the case.
The AP reported that authorities also were looking into social media posts by someone with the same name that mentioned homelessness, New York and Mayor Eric Adams, leading officials to tighten the mayor’s security detail, Essig and Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said. She said the posts were “concerning.”
The attack made the subway a scene of horror: a smoke-filled car with at least 33 rounds of gunfire going off, police said. Frightened commuters ran from the train and others limped out of it. At least one rider collapsed on the platform, as was reported by the AP.
“My subway door opened into calamity. It was smoke and blood and people screaming,” eyewitness Sam Carcamo told radio station 1010 WINS, as was reported by the AP. Smoke poured out of the train car as the door opened, he added.
In a report on THE CITY website, (thecity.nyc) it stated that the shots — initially reported as an “unusual loud noise” in an internal MTA alert — rang out at 8:23 a.m. at the 36th Street stop in Sunset Park as panicked commuters escaped the Manhattan-bound train, with some collapsing on the smoky station platform.
A manhunt is on for the assailant, who witnesses said was wearing a gas mask and a green construction vest and gray hoodie, according to TheCity.nyc web site.
“This is an active shooter situation right now in the city of New York,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said during a briefing at the scene a few hours after the attack.
TheCity.nyc reported that Hochul noted those riders had, moments earlier, been “en route to school, en route to their jobs and into a normal day.”
“That sense of tranquility and normalness was disrupted, brutally disrupted by an individual so coldhearted and depraved of heart that they had no caring about the individuals that they assaulted as they simply went about their daily lives,” she said.
“We want to get back to normal,” Hochul said, as was reported by TheCity.com. “It has been a long, hard two years — that’s what we crave, stability and normalcy.”
The AP reported that as police searched for the shooter, Gov. Kathy Hochul warned New Yorkers to be vigilant. “This individual is still on the loose. This person is dangerous,” the Democrat said at news conference. “This is an active shooter situation right now in the city of New York.”
TheCity.nyc reported that Mayor Eric Adams, who is restricted to Gracie Mansion with COVID, vowed that police would find the gunman, who was described as 5-foot-5, Black and with a heavy build. He asked for help from New Yorkers with tracking the shooter down through photographs or videos.
“Trust me when I tell you, we’re going to find this person and we’re going to bring him to justice,” Adams told NY1.
Adams and Hochul in January announced plans to put more police officers into the subway system and in February rolled out the plan designed to curb homelessness on trains and in stations, while enforcing the MTA’s code of conduct, according to TheCity.nyc report.
“We are continuing our mission as the ridership returns, hopefully to normalcy soon,” Jason Wilcox, the NYPD Transit Chief said at last month’s MTA committee meetings. “Not just to keep the ridership safe, but to make them feel safe.”
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber had said at last month’s board meeting that those efforts have begun to yield results for riders, as was reported by TheCity.nyc
“While by no means are we out of the woods — and there is a lot of progress that needs to be made on subway safety — I just want to acknowledge that the work has begun,” Lieber said. “A serious effort is underway.”
TheCity.com reported that on Tuesday, Lieber credited subway riders for being “incredibly resilient.”
“We saw New Yorkers in a difficult situation, in an emergency, helping each other,” Lieber said. “That’s the subway riders, that’s who New Yorkers are.”
Five people were in critical condition but expected to survive. As of late Tuesday afternoon, the AP reported that at least 17 people in all were injured in some way in the attack that began on a subway train that pulled into a station in the Sunset Park neighborhood, about a 15-minute train ride from Manhattan and predominantly home to Hispanic and Asian communities.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said that the attack was not being investigated as terrorism, but that she was “not ruling out anything.”
“The train at that time began to fill with smoke,” Sewell said, according to TheCity.nyc report. “He then opened fire, striking multiple people.”
Sewell said it’s under investigation if security cameras in the station were working. TheCity.nyc reported that later in an interview on WCBS 880 radio, the mayor said the surveillance on the platform was “malfunctioning.” The MTA last year finished installing cameras in all 472 stations.
Speaking to TheCity.nyc, Lisa Daglian of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA said the shooting “likely will be a step back” for a system that has been battered by the pandemic and concerns over crime.
“What has to happen is there has to be an oncoming commitment to making the subway safe and combating the day-to-day crime and the very scary, very real situation that we’ve seen today. I believe we’ve seen that commitment, Daglian told TheCity.nyc.
Authorities had a photo of a suspect and were working to confirm his identity, two law enforcement officials said. The motive remains unknown. The AP reported that officers around the city were told to look out for a U-Haul truck with a certain Arizona license plate number and to stop it and detain all occupants immediately.
Investigators recovered a handgun at the scene, along with multiple smoke devices and other items they are analyzing, the officials said. They said the suspect is believed to have had at least two extended magazines, according to the AP report.
Investigators believe the weapon jammed, preventing the suspect from continuing to fire, the officials said. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, The AP reported that firearms and Explosives has completed an urgent trace to identify the gun’s manufacturer, seller and initial owner.
The officials were not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition on anonymity, according to the AP report.
The AP reported that the attack unnerved a city on guard about a rise in gun violence and the ever-present threat of terrorism. It left some New Yorkers jittery about riding the nation’s busiest subway system and prompted officials to increase policing at transportation hubs from Philadelphia to Connecticut.
One rider’s video, shot through a closed door between subway cars, shows a person in a hooded sweatshirt raising an arm and pointing at something — possibly the door to a conductor’s booth — as five bangs sound. In another video, smoke and people pour out of a subway car, some limping, according to the AP report.
“Someone call 911!” a person shouts.
Other video and photos from the scene show people tending to bloodied passengers lying on the platform, some amid what appear to be small puddles of blood, and another person on the floor of a subway car.
The AP also reported that Juliana Fonda, a broadcast engineer at WNYC-FM, told its news site Gothamist she was riding the train when passengers from the car behind hers started banging on the door between them.
“There was a lot of loud pops, and there was smoke in the other car,” she said, according to the AP report. “And people were trying to get in and they couldn’t, they were pounding on the door to get into our car.”
Fire and police officials were investigating reports that there had been an explosion, but Sewell said at a press conference just after noon that there were no known explosive devices. Multiple smoke devices were found on the scene, said mayoral spokesperson Fabien Levy, according to the AP report.
High school student John Butsikaris was riding the other train when he saw a conductor urging everyone to get in. The AP reported that he thought there might just have been a mundane problem until the next stop, when he heard screams for medical attention and his train was evacuated.
“I’m definitely shook,” the 15-year-old told The Associated Press. “Even though I didn’t see what happened, I’m still scared, because it was like a few feet away from me, what happened.”
No transit workers were physically hurt, according to their union. The AP reported that besides gunshot wounds, the injured riders were treated for smoke inhalation, shrapnel and panic.
Tony Utano, the president of Transport Workers Local 100, called the shooting “a shocking and horrible burst of violence in our transit system” and said anti-crime efforts need to be stepped up, as was reported by TheCity.nyc.
“We need to fix this crime thing, otherwise this will happen again,” he told THE CITY. “When there is a war, you go down with your forces to where the war is.”
TheCity.nyc reported that a veteran train operator said crews have procedures to follow when faced with unruly riders or violence while in transit.
“You call the rail control center, get the train into a station, open the doors and hope it doesn’t get any worse,” the transit worker told THE CITY. “They’re responsible for the passenger safety, but also their own safety. It’s got to be a harrowing situation.”
In Tuesday morning’s attack, an MTA worker on the intercom at the 36th Street station instructed victims to get on an R train, which took them to 25th Street.
President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland were briefed on the incident, as was reported by the AP.
The incident happened on a subway line that runs through south Brooklyn in a neighborhood predominantly home to Hispanic and Asian communities and about a 15-minute train ride to Manhattan, according to the AP report. Local schools, including Sunset Park High School across the street from the station, were locked down.
Danny Mastrogiorgio of Brooklyn had just dropped his son off at school when he saw a crush of passengers, some of them wounded, running up the subway stairway at the nearby 25th Street station in panic. At least two had visible leg injuries, he said.
“It was insane,” he told the AP. “No one knew exactly what was going on.”
Allan Lee was running his business, Cafe Nube, when a half-dozen police cars and fire vehicles suddenly converged on the block that contains the 36th Street station, according to the AP report.
“Then they started ushering people that were on the block to the adjacent block and then closed off the subway entrance,” he told the AP. When he noticed bomb squad officers and dogs, he was certain it was no everyday subway problem.
The City.nyc reported that Henry Mautner, 33, an owner of Minnie’s Bar on Fourth Avenue near 33rd Street, said he usually takes the D train to work.
When he heard what happened this morning he was first worried about his staff and his customers, according to TheCity,nyc report. But he said it doesn’t make him fearful to ride the trains.
“I think I will continue to take the subways. It’s obviously a terrible thing but I think it’s just unlucky that it happened here,” he said. “I will continue to take the subway — maybe not today.”
New York City has faced a spate of shootings and high-profile incidents in recent months, including on the city’s subways. The AP reported that one of the most shocking was in January, when a woman was pushed to her death in front of a train by a stranger.
Adams, a Democrat a little over 100 days into his term, has made cracking down on crime — especially on the subways — a focus of his early administration, pledging to send more police officers into stations and platforms for regular patrols. The AP reported that it wasn’t immediately clear whether officers had already been inside the station when the shootings occurred.
The violence during the morning commute again highlighted the struggles faced by the city and the transit system entering year three of a devastating pandemic. (Sources: AP, TheCity.nyc) – Read more at TheCity.nyc
