Brooklyn subway station shooting: 10 latest developments
The police have identified a “person of interest” after 10 people were shot at a subway station in New York’s Brooklyn on Tuesday, officials said.
FollowPolice mounted an intense manhunt on Tuesday for a gunman who set off two smoke bombs and opened fire in a New York subway car, injuring more than 20 people in a morning rush-hour attack that prompted new calls to fight violence in the city’s transit system.
A gunman in a gas mask and construction vest set off a smoke grenade and fired a barrage of at least 33 bullets in a rush-hour subway train. Police were scouring the city for the shooter and trying to track down the renter of a van possibly connected to the violence.
We bring you the latest updates:
· At an early evening news briefing, police named a “person of interest” in the investigation as Frank James, who investigators believed had rented the U-Haul vehicle. Police said they recovered the key to the van at the crime scene and it had been rented in Philadelphia.
· The police have identified a “person of interest” after 10 people were shot at a subway station in New York’s Brooklyn on Tuesday, officials said. Police said they were looking for Frank R James, 62, in connection with the attack as he had rented a U-Haul van that may be linked to the shooting. The key was found at the subway crime scene.
· NYPD chief James Essig said the gunman had fired 33 shots. Police later recovered a Glock 17 nine-millimetre handgun, three additional ammunition magazines and a hatchet from the scene.
· New York Police Department (NYPD) commissioner Keechant Sewell said a U-Haul van believed to be connected to the shooting was later located in Brooklyn, but the perpetrator remained at large several hours after the shooting.
· Police said 13 more people suffered from smoke inhalation or were otherwise injured in the chaos as panicked riders fled the smoke-filled subway car, Reuters reported. Ten people were hit directly by gunfire, including five hospitalised in critical but stable condition, authorities said.
· According to CNN report, President Joe Biden has been briefed about the incident, and Mayor Eric Adams is monitoring the situation. New York Governor Kathy Hochul also said in a tweet that she has been briefed on the “developing situation” in Brooklyn.
· BBC reported that residents have been warned to avoid the area, while at least four train lines have been delayed in both directions. The area around the station has been cordoned off while an investigation is being conducted.
· Mass casualty shootings happen with relative frequency in the United States, where firearms are involved in approximately 40,000 deaths a year, including suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.
· Violent crime has risen across the United States over the pandemic, and New York City has been no exception. While the city remains one of the safest in the country and far less dangerous than it was in the 1990s, when Mayor Eric Adams was rising through the New York City Police Department's ranks, the new mayor has revived some of the tough-on-crime policing tactics associated with that era under the Republican mayor Rudy Giuliani.
· The man whom the police have identified as a person of interest in the subway attack in Brooklyn appears to have posted dozens of videos on social media in recent years — lengthy rants in which he expressed a range of harshly bigoted views and, more recently, criticised the policies of New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams.
