Shooting in the New York subway: what we know about the attack which left 23 injured

A shootout in the middle of rush hour. A man shot several times at passengers on a subway train in Sunset Park in Brooklyn, after throwing smoke bombs at 8:24 a.m. Tuesday. The report shows 23 wounded, including ten by bullets. “We were really lucky it didn’t get much more serious,” the New York police chief said at a news conference. A suspect was arrested on Wednesday April 13, after a long manhunt. Franceinfo looks back on what we know about this tragedy. Masked man shot passengers As New York’s subway trains are packed, a man wearing a gas mask ‘opened two canisters which released smoke into the train,’ Keechant Sewell reported , the city’s chief of police. “He then shot at a number of passengers when the train entered the 36th Street station” in the Brooklyn neighborhood. The attacker fired 33 bullets into the subway. On the spot, the investigators found “a 9mm Glock handgun, three ammunition magazines, a hatchet, untriggered explosive devices, a liquid believed to be gasoline”, specifies the New York Times (in English) , along with a vehicle key that allowed them to trace a recently rented, abandoned U-Haul American rental truck in Brooklyn. A suspect was arrested After the attack, the police launched a real manhunt to find “a black man” measuring about 1m65 and “heavyweight”. A suspect was arrested Wednesday afternoon. Police said they took 62-year-old Frank Robert James into custody. Frank Robert James had nowhere else to run or hide—and is now in NYPD custody. The work of our detectives is second to none and the dedication of our patrol officers is never ending. pic.twitter.com/uOXliUvoJ7 — Commissioner Sewell (@NYPDPC) April 13, 2022 To find him, the police had released photos of the man who had rented the van, without specifying that he was the suspect. A $50,000 reward was promised by authorities, according to the New York Times. This is Frank James who is a person of interest in this investigation. Any information can be directed to @NYPDTips at 800-577-TIPS. pic.twitter.com/yBpenmsX67 — NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) April 12, 2022 New York Democratic Mayor Eric Adams lamented that at least one security camera at the 36th Street subway station, where a the shooting took place, either off duty. At least 23 people were injured “It looked like it was planned. (…) We were stuck in the train. (…) There was a lot of blood on the ground,” said one passengers on CNN. Photos and amateur videos showed pools of blood and people lying on the floor of a train, as well as on the platform of the 36th subway station in Sunset Park. A passenger traveling on the train on the opposite platform told the New York Times that he grabbed a young man who had been shot in the leg and was bleeding profusely. “He was so scared,” he testified. The young man also told her that he first saw the shooter at the New Utrecht Avenue station, four stops before 36th Street. Among the victims, ten were shot, five of whom are in critical but stable condition, New York police and firefighters said. The other thirteen were injured in the scramble to get out of the subway or because of smoke inhalation. The 36th Street and 4th Avenue area around the subway station was cordoned off for much of Tuesday and many victims were treated on the spot. The police ruled out the terrorist track Even if the motivations of the shooter are not yet known, the police, who opened an investigation, ruled out the terrorist track. “No explosives were found in the metro and there is no investigation open for an act of terrorism,” said Keechant Sewell. According to the New York police, the arrested individual is the one who was wanted. The man is said to have posted various videos on YouTube, in which he engages in long political tirades, sometimes virulent, in which he evokes racial issues, insecurity in New York, especially in the subway, and attacks the gay people, or the mayor of New York. “There have been posts that might be related to the person we are interested in, where he mentions homelessness, where he mentions New York, where he mentions Mayor Adams,” the NYPD chief confirmed. Elected in November on security promises, the Democratic mayor and former police officer, Eric Adams, announced in February that he wanted to strengthen security in the subways by dislodging more than 1,000 homeless people who regularly take refuge there, reports the New York. Times. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, New York has faced a rise in crime and the number of homicides has increased from 319 in 2019 to 488 in 2021. Joe Biden praised the courage of civilians “We will not let go nothing until we find the author of the crime,” promised the president of the United States, Joe Biden, while traveling in Iowa. He also praised, on Twitter, “the first responders and civilians who took action”. Jill and I are praying for those injured in the New York City subway shooting. We are grateful for the first responders and civilians who jumped into action. My team has been in touch with city officials and we are working to support efforts on the ground. — President Biden (@POTUS) April 12, 2022 The day before, Joe Biden had announced measures against some of the firearms proliferating in the United States, which killed 45,000 people in the country in 2021, including suicides, according to the organization Gun Violence Archive. For her part, the governor of the state of New York, Kathy Hochul, expressed her anger. “We’re tired of reading the headlines about crime, whether it’s shootings or the loss of a teenage girl or a 13-year-old. It has to stop,” he said. she launched, alluding to several recent victims, including children, of shootings or stray bullets.