Lhe man suspected of having fired in the New York subway at rush hour on Tuesday morning, injuring 23 people, including 10 by bullets, was arrested on Wednesday, several American media reported citing police sources. The suspect, who had wreaked havoc on the subway the day before, was found in Manhattan, according to NBC television. He will be prosecuted under a law that prohibits “terrorist attacks and other violence against (…) public transport”, announced a federal prosecutor. “He will appear in federal court in Brooklyn and, if convicted, will face a life sentence,” prosecutor Breon Peace said at a press conference. Police had been looking for more than 24 hours for Frank James, a 62-year-old African American, accused of multiple shootings on an N line train at station 36th Street in South Brooklyn. On Wednesday, New Yorkers received an urgent message on their phones asking them to deliver any useful information to the investigators. A $50,000 reward had been put on the table.
Many videos on YouTube
The man had a YouTube page, called “prophetoftruth88” (prophet of truth) deleted Wednesday morning for “violation of the community rules” of the site. He posted multiple videos there where we see him launching long tirades, sometimes rambling and vehement, in which he evokes racial issues, insecurity in New York, especially on the subway, and attacks homosexual people, or the new mayor, Eric Adams.
Tuesday morning, around 8:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. GMT), at a time when the metro trains are crowded, the individual, who was wearing a gas mask, lit two devices which smoked the car, then fired on passengers as the train entered the station. The attack came as New York has faced a spike in crime since the Covid-19 pandemic, with the number of homicides rising from 319 in 2019 to 488 in 2021, although the annual toll remains well in below the more than 2,000 per year recorded in the early 1990s. Shootings have also remained on the rise since the start of the year, rising from 260 to 296 in the first quarter of 2022, according to police figures, some of which have marked the spirits, like the death Friday of a 17-year-old girl, shot dead outside a high school in the Bronx.
