An armed and masked man launched a smoke bomb on Tuesday April 12 and then opened fire on a New York subway train. Midi Libre takes stock of what we know.
Total chaos at rush hour. At 8:27 a.m. in New York on Tuesday, or 2:27 p.m. Paris time, several shots were heard in the corridors of the subway during rush hour. Thousands of workers rush there every morning to reach their places of professional activity.
Number of injured, suspect…
According to firefighters, ten people were shot. Thirteen others were injured by shrapnel and during the chaos following the spread of smoke in the train, but none were in danger of death at midday, details West France.
A manhunt is underway to find the suspect, who fled.
He was described by police as “a black male” about 1.65m tall, “heavyweight”, and wearing a “green and orange construction vest” and a gray hooded sweatshirt.
The police gave the description and distributed photos of the individual who rented the van, without saying if it was the suspect.
According to several media, this man, Frank James, 62, published several videos on Youtube where he talks about politics and criticizes the mayor of New York Eric Adams, reports The Midi Dispatch.
At the scene, the investigators found a handgun and three magazines, as well as a vehicle key which allowed them to go back to a van from the American rental company U-Haul, recently rented and abandoned in Brooklyn.
Where exactly were the shots fired?
The gunshots were heard in the Brooklyn neighborhood at 36th Street and 4th Avenue in the south of the neighborhood. Amateur photos and videos showed several people lying in pools of blood on the floor of the subway train.
New York City subway passengers clamor to escape a subway car – some of them visibly injured – after CBS New York sources say a gunman opened fire and threw a smoke bomb onto a train. Multiple people were shot and more than a dozen were injured, authorities said. pic.twitter.com/IO9Tdr9Fe8
—CBS News (@CBSNews) April 12, 2022
According to one of the passengers, Yav Montano, who was speaking on CNN, “a smoke grenade…a bomb went off, I would say two minutes before we got to the station”. “It looked like it was planned (…). We were stuck in the train (…) There was a lot of blood on the ground”, added this man.
No “terrorist investigation” at this stage
An important security device was deployed at the level of 36th street and 4th avenue, in the south of Brooklyn, where the facts occurred, and the schools near the station were “confined” this Tuesday, relates CNN which quotes a member of the Department of Education, without specifying the number of establishments or students concerned.
The attack took place as New York City has faced a spike in crime since the Covid-19 pandemic. From January 1 to early April 2022, the number of shootings and shootings in New York City increased from the same period in 2021, from 260 to 296, according to NYPD figures released last week.
