New York City police officers on Wednesday apprehended the man who they believed opened fire on a Brooklyn subway train the previous day, officials said.
“My fellow New Yorkers: We got him,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a news conference on Wednesday afternoon. “We got him.”
The man, Frank R. James, 62, was taken into custody in the East Village, more than 30 hours after the Police Department launched a citywide search with other state and federal law enforcement agencies, Police Commissioner Keechant L. Sewell said.
Officers stopped Mr. James after receiving a tip from someone in the neighborhood, she said. He will be arraigned in federal court in Brooklyn on a terrorism-related charge with a maximum sentence of life in prison, the authorities said.
Officials on Wednesday morning said that Mr. James was the lone suspect in the mass shooting, in which 23 people were injured, 10 of them from gunfire, and which was the worst outbreak of subway violence in recent history.
The Police Department was working with the F.B.I.’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to track down the man.
James Essig, the Police Department’s chief of detectives, said that detectives saw Mr. James on video entering the subway system on Tuesday morning at the Kings Highway station on the N line. Video showed him carrying a bag that was later found at the crime scene.
The police also found a key to a U-Haul van among the gunman’s belongings at the scene of the shooting and later found the van parked near the subway station where the gunman had boarded the train. They determined that Mr. James had rented the van in Philadelphia.
Footage later showed Mr. James exiting the 25th Street station, one stop away from the shooting scene, Chief Essig said. Detectives believed that he boarded an R train across the platform, rode one stop along with many of the shooting victims and panicked riders, and exited there.
Mr. James, who has addresses in Milwaukee and Philadelphia, has posted a series of disturbing, bigoted videos online, including one where he mocked Mr. Adams’s efforts to reduce subway crime.
As law enforcement workers combed the region for Mr. James, the platform at the 36th Street subway station in the Sunset Park neighborhood in Brooklyn, where Tuesday’s bloodshed had erupted, was crowded, somber and heavily policed.
Tyreek Page, 21, a heating and cooling mechanic who had ridden one of the last trains Tuesday morning before the mayhem erupted, said he was surprised to find so many people on the platform.
“It’s weird because I wasn’t expecting to see anybody,” he said.
About 24 hours before, as a rush-hour N train approached the station, the gunman had donned a gas mask, tossed two smoke grenades on the floor, fired 33 shots and fled.
In addition to the 10 people hit by gunfire, at least 13 others sustained injuries related to smoke inhalation, falls or panic attacks, the authorities said.
Shooting in Brooklyn subway
3The R train took passengers, including some who were injured, up one stop to 25th Street, where they departed.
BRONX
MANHATTAN
QUEENS
17st
Shooting
STATEN
ISLAND
South Brooklyn Marine Terminal
BROOKLYN
25th Street
station
Gowanus Expressway
27 St.
Bay Ridge Channel
5th Ave.
2When the train pulled into 36th Street, riders poured out and across to the Manhattan-bound R train on the other side of the platform.
36th Street
station
36 St.
Bush Terminal Piers Park
Green-Wood
Cemetery
1st Ave.
MTA 38th St Train Yard
41 St.
2nd Ave.
D-Train line
The N train skips these stations
Sunset
Park
45th Street
station
48 St.
1After the Manhattan-bound N train left the 59th Street station, the gunman released a canister of smoke and opened fire.
SUNSET
PARK
8th Ave.
53th Street
station
59th Street
station
BROOKLYN
800 ft.
3The R train took passengers, including some who were injured, up one stop to 25th Street, where they departed.
BRONX
MANHATTAN
QUEENS
Gowanus Expressway
South Brooklyn Marine Terminal
Shooting
BROOKLYN
STATEN
ISLAND
25th Street
station
2When the train pulled into 36th Street, riders poured out and across to the Manhattan-bound R train on the other side of the platform.
27 St.
5th Ave.
36th Street
station
36 St.
Bush Terminal Piers Park
Green-Wood
Cemetery
1st Ave.
41 St.
2nd Ave.
D-Train line
Sunset
Park
The N train skips these stations
45th Street
station
1After the Manhattan-bound N train left the 59th Street station, the gunman released a canister of smoke and opened fire.
48 St.
8th Ave.
SUNSET
PARK
53th Street
station
59th Street
station
BROOKLYN
800 ft.
BRONX
MANHATTAN
QUEENS
Shooting
3The R train took passengers, including some who were injured, up one stop to 25th Street, where they departed.
STATEN
ISLAND
BROOKLYN
Bay Ridge Channel
17st
Gowanus Expressway
2When the train pulled into 36th Street, riders poured out and across to the Manhattan-bound R train on the other side of the platform.
25th St
station
5th Ave.
36th St
station
Green-Wood
Cemetery
1st Ave.
2nd Ave.
D-Train line
Sunset
Park
The N train skips these stations
45th St
station
8th Ave.
SUNSET
PARK
53th St
station
59th St
station
BROOKLYN
1After the Manhattan-bound N train left the 59th Street station, the gunman released a canister of smoke and opened fire.
800 ft
The authorities asked that people share cellphone video that might help bring the manhunt to a swift conclusion and have offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunman.
Previous manhunts for attackers in New York City have dragged on for days, weeks or even months, though. And the Sunset Park investigation is already facing a glaring obstacle: At least one camera at the station failed to capture anything during the attack, an oversight that Mr. Adams blamed on a “malfunction.”
36th Street subway station
The shooting complicates efforts by Mr. Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul to convince people that the subways are safe, after months in which a spate of high-profile attacks on the system have hindered efforts to recover ridership that fell at the start of the pandemic and that remains more than 40 percent below prepandemic levels.
On Wednesday morning, Joseph Hale, a mailroom clerk, said he felt a bit uneasy about riding the subway from his home in Brooklyn to his office in Midtown Manhattan.
“I took the train like always, but was alert about who was coming on the train and how people were acting on the train,” said Mr. Hale, 40.
He said the train was as full as it usually was, but that other people were eying each other and seemed more cautious than usual.
Others said they weren’t worried. Marie Soohoo, a waitress in Midtown, said she felt safe riding the subway the day after the attack.
“Something always happens,” said Ms. Soohoo, 72. “A lot of people worry but all you can do is protect yourself.”
Jonah E. Bromwich, Emma Fitzsimmons, Jenny Gross, Rebecca Davis O’Brien and Nate Schweber contributed reporting.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/13/nyregion/brooklyn-subway-shooting
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