News story here: https://thehill.com/news/3264917-multiple-people-shot-at-new-york-city-subway-station/
Police are looking for a dude wearing an MTA-style vest, who was wearing a gas mask when he threw a device into the station. Yikes.
Still developing, just one darn thing after another, isn’t it?
13 injured at this point.
Very glad I’m working from home today. That’s a few stations away, but still in the neighborhood. Tons of helicopters and sirens right now.
from witness reports, it appears that the incident happened on the subway car before it got to the station.
NYT headline says police are looking for a man in an orange vest and gas mask. Gosh, I hope the guy doesn’t take those things off, so the police can find him easier.
news conference now.
10 shot, 5 critical. suspect still at large. the shooting was in the train car.
Good news is that the “unexploded devices” weren’t explosive, after all. At least according to the NYPD.
I watched the 12:30ish ‘presser’; they said green vest. I own two, but both are yellow
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(FTR: I am also not black, significantly taller than 5’5" tall, & was not in Brooklyn today. IOW, it wasn’t me!)
My grandson’s middle school was locked down all day and they could not go out for lunch. He complained to my daughter that the cafeteria food sucked. The school is at 5th Ave. and 4th St., maybe a mile away.
If you look at the google map of the area, the subway station is replaced by an exclamation point and a small legend saying it is site of the shooting.
Police have offered some interesting details: In the subway car they found 33 shell casings and the 9mm pistol they were fired from. Also smoke grenades (2 detonated, 2 undetonated), a hatchet, gasoline and a U-Haul key.
This key led them to a U-Haul van parked in Brooklyn, which was apparently rented in Philadelphia by a man named Frank R. James, age 62.
From the NY Times:
"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, criticized the policies of New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams.
The man, Frank R. James, 62, has addresses in Wisconsin and Philadelphia, the police said. He is the subject of a search effort as investigators seek to determine any connection he may have had to the shooting at a Brooklyn subway station on Tuesday morning."
From the Youtube rants (here’s a more direct link than the one above) it appears that he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Link to the NY Times coverage, but it’s probably paywalled for non-subscribers. (I can’t tell since I’m a subscriber)
LOL my husband was on the subway today (but not in Brooklyn) and wasn’t wearing his neon yellow vest with reflective stripes. He wears it only on winter mornings when it’s dark outside so he doesn’t get hit walking to the station. He’s also not black and quite a bit taller than 5’5" so it wasn’t him.
Seriously, this hits home because my husband takes the subway to work 5 days a week and my 2 kids take it to classes 2 or 3 days a week. And I’m planning to take it to get to an event tomorrow.
A few years ago my husband worked 4 blocks from the 36th St station (which is in a gentrifying area) so used to be there every day. and is very annoyed that so many of the news reports are going on about the crime rate. He was yelling at the radio a while ago that it’s not about the crime rate, that crazies are everywhere.
I just looked and they must have taken away the exclamation mark, all I see is 36th St subway station D N Q R W
It’s strange that many of the wounded were hit in the legs and knees? Was he not shooting to kill?
And here’s what his neighbors say, quoted in the NY Times
James was “gruff and standoffish, and once confronted her over a key left in her apartment door.
The neighbor, Keilah Miller, said she had not seen Mr. James since late March — a timeline that aligns with Mr. James’s description of his recent travels, posted in a YouTube video last month.
Ms. Miller, 32, said that she lived in an adjacent unit to Mr. James, 62, and that he had moved into the two-story triplex in Milwaukee within the past year.
Ms. Miller said she had heard him yelling on the phone several times, including a conversation in which he complained about ignorant people. After she mistakenly left her key in her lock, they had an altercation in which she recalled him yelling, “Don’t ever do that again!”
He walked down the street almost every morning, she said, but never said hello.”
"One former neighbor from an apartment in Milwaukee that Mr. James previously lived in said Mr. James was quiet and walked with a limp, and that it was a surprise he would be connected with the shooting.
The neighbor, Mike Lopez, 38, said he never spoke to Mr. James but often saw him pushing a small cart with groceries or other possessions.
“I didn’t see him as no threat or nothing,” Mr. Lopez said. “I mean, I don’t see him as capable as that. He can’t move like that, man. He wasn’t fast.”
Here’s a link to the video Frank James posted on Monday, going directly to 11:38, the part where he says that he’s been through a lot and he wants to watch people die right in front of him
(warning, graphic language)
Some very weird beliefs in the mind of Frank James:
Frank James, 62, who Adams on Wednesday morning identified as the suspect in the Brooklyn attack, recorded and uploaded dozens of lengthy diatribes on race, politics, and gun violence to a YouTube channel under the username prophetoftruth88, which had more than 300 subscribers.
In the videos, James offers commentary on major news events from Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars to Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination to the war in Ukraine. In most of the videos, however, James seems to express his disdain for Black people—often calling them “cattle” and racial slurs—and talks about his desire to “kill people,” even describing himself as a “prophet of doom.”
“[N-words] should be wiped off the planet, even though I am one,” James says in one video.
Guy was apparently mentally disturbed and radicalized into violent bigotry. And who the hell are his hundreds of followers on Youtube? Why would someone watch that?
Can’t help but notice the neo-Nazi callout “88” in his username as well.
Aside: as a subscriber (I am, too), use the “gift” icon (looks like a teeny present) to get a link you can share that is not paywalled.
WaPo has the same option.
Carry on.
mr. james has been arrested. update around 2pm.
federal charges are pending, which if proven will go to life in prison. the gun was purchased in ohio, quite a bit ago.
he was able to get away by using the subway lines like many of the victims.