NEW YORK — A gunman wearing a gas mask and firing a 9 mm handgun blasted a path of destruction through a Brooklyn rush-hour subway car that injured 22 people Tuesday before he disappeared despite a massive NYPD manhunt.
The assailant detonated a smoke bomb and opened fire around 8:30 a.m. after issuing a two-word warning to straphangers inside the crowded car of a northbound N train: “Start running.”
Ten riders were shot and 12 others were injured. Five of the victims were hospitalized in critical condition once the shooting stopped, authorities said.
Police released photos of a person of interest in the attack, who they identified as Frank James, 62.
“He started firing randomly into the crowd,” eyewitness subway rider Catherine Garcia, 34, said of the shooter. “He probably couldn’t see, because it was black smoke. We just prayed and hoped that he would not just execute us one by one.”
Garcia, who was seated alongside her husband when the gunman stood up and squeezed the trigger, watched as people were shot around them: an Asian youth whose finger was nearly blown off, another man with a gunshot wound to his leg. A third straphanger narrowly dodged death when a bullet tore through his pants leg.
The shooter, a Black man in a green construction vest and gray hoodie, carried two extended magazines of bullets. But his Glock 9 mm pistol jammed as he sprayed the subway car with gunfire, police sources said.
Eyewitnesses recounted hearing anywhere from 15 to 30 shots as the train rolled beneath Sunset Park, and one rider recalled the gunman announcing “Oops, my bad” after the smoke bomb went off.
“Don’t know how this guy could start shooting on a crowded train and only hit a few people,” said a law enforcement source. “There must have been an angel up there knocking the bullets out of the way.”
Authorities provided no motive for the shooting spree as the manhunt for the suspect continued. The gun was recovered at the scene, along with a hatchet and a bag filled with fireworks and smoke grenades, a law enforcement source said.
Also found at the scene was a credit card that authorities linked to a rented U-Haul van with Arizona license plate number AL31408. Late on Tuesday afternoon cops found the U-Haul parked on Kings Highway as the manhunt continued.
Police believe James rented the van in Philadelphia. He has a criminal record in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, police sources said.
“I’m not ruling out anything,” NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said.
The suspect sat quietly in the train’s second car before slipping the mask on and opening the canister to send the blinding smoke pouring out, Sewell said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. Photos from the scene captured a bloody stretch of the subway train and platform. Victims sprawled on the tiles were tended to by fellow straphangers. A bullet was lodged by a seat in the train covered in debris.
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber, in a CNN interview, said authorities had “a ton of evidence” from the scene and the NYPD was “hot on the trail of the suspect.”
Rider Houari Benkada, 27, was wearing his headphones and sitting across from the shooter when the smoke bomb detonated and everything went sideways in the blink of an eye.
“I couldn’t see, and then I got hit in my knee,” he said. “I heard maybe 15 to 20 shots ... I hit the floor, and a guy next to me got hit in the shin.”
The victims ranged in age from 17 to 49. None of their injuries was believed to be life-threatening.
It was not immediately clear where the gunman entered or exited the train system.
“We have not found any live explosive devices, but the suspect in today’s attack detonated smoke bombs to cause havoc,” Mayor Eric Adams, who was quarantined at Gracie Mansion with COVID, said in a statement. “We will not allow New Yorkers to be terrorized even by a single individual.”
The canister the shooter opened on the train was akin to a smoke bomb and readily available for sale on the internet, a high-ranking NYPD source said.
The train was waiting to enter the 36th Street station when the shooting began. Once the doors opened, wounded commuters ran out and collapsed on the platform, terrifying people waiting to board.
A cellphone video seen by the New York Daily News shows smoke pouring out of the subway car at the 36th Street station as the train doors open.
“Either shots or a bomb went off at 36th Street,” tweeted witness Roddy Broke. “Scariest moment of my life, man.”
Videos captured dozens of people bolting from the train car, coughing and gagging from the smoke. A few moments later, at least two people limped out of the smoke-filled train car, with one falling to the ground, bleeding.
“I was heading into 36th Street Station in Brooklyn when a young guy who was bleeding from the legs said people were injured,” said witness Conrad Aderer.
Other witnesses reported seeing wounded people, all adults, reeling out of the station to the street above. Several were screaming “Call 911!” Others shouted “Somebody’s shooting!”
Many victims and witnesses jumped onto an R train waiting at the station, which took them to 25th Street.
Brooklyn College student Emily Guzman, 19, was headed to take a statistics exam when everything erupted just seconds after she boarded the train.
“Bleeding, smoking — lots of smoke,” she said. “Three people shot. When people started running, they were screaming. That’s all you could hear. Just screaming.”
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(Emma Seiwell and Noah Goldberg contributed to this story.)
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