The subway shooting incident
New York train station shooting: Police nab suspect
Less than 24 hours after Tuesday’s subway shooting in New York which injured about 23 people, police in New York have arrested the suspect.
Identified as a 62-year-old man, Frank R. James, the shooter was arrested, Wednesday, in connection with the mass shooting on a subway train in Brooklyn, New York in which at least 23 people were injured.
Mr. James, who law enforcement officials suspect of having perpetrated the worst attack on New York’s subway system in years, was taken into custody on Wednesday, more than 24 hours into an expansive search that erupted after at least 10 people were shot at a Brooklyn train station.
“We got him,” said Mayor Eric Adams, the first official to speak at an afternoon news conference. “We got him.”
James was arrested in the East Village, officials said, and has been charged with having committed a terrorist act on a mass transit system, according to Breon S. Peace, the U.S. attorney for New York’s Eastern District. If convicted, Mr. James could face a sentence of up to life in prison.
Officials said that James was apprehended thanks to a tip that came in from a McDonald’s on Sixth Street and First Avenue. Officers responded, and when James was not present, they began driving around the neighborhood. They found him on the corner of St. Marks Place and First Avenue, one of the busier intersections in the East Village, and took him into custody without incident.
“We were able to shrink his world quickly,” said New York’s Police Commissioner, Keechant Sewell, adding: “There was nowhere left for him to run.”
Officials said that after the attack the day before, Mr. James had left the N train where the shooting had taken place and boarded a local train across the platform, the R train, that several of his victims had also fled to. He exited the subway system at 25th Street and managed to evade law enforcement for over a day.
James had been arrested many times previously, officials said, including nine prior arrests in New York, mostly for misdemeanors, and three arrests in New Jersey.
His apprehension on Wednesday put an end to a frantic search that began after the shooting in the Sunset Park subway station, which left at least 23 people injured.
Officials said James was the man who, wearing a construction worker’s helmet and vest and a gas mask, had thrown two smoke grenades on the floor of the N train and unleashed a barrage of gunfire into the car around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
He escaped the scene, but the police discovered an array of belongings on the train that he appeared to have left behind, including a Glock 9-millimeter handgun, three ammunition magazines, a credit card with James’s name on it and a key to a U-Haul van.
