[Original story, published at 1:05 p.m. ET] The 62-year-old man, who police initially described as a “person of interest” for the Brooklyn subway shootings, was declared a suspect on Wednesday after investigators found he had bought the gun found at the scene, law enforcement officials said. An intense hunt is underway to locate the man, identified as Frank James, who according to police is responsible for Tuesday’s attack. Two law enforcement officials told CNN that evidence of the weapons was the turning point in turning him from a person of interest to a suspect. LIVE UPDATES: Shots fired at Brooklyn Subway Station The manhunt comes a day after a gunman fired smoke grenades and fired a shot 33 times at a crowded subway train heading to Sun Station Park 36 toward the station. The attack injured 29 people, 10 of whom were shot, although none of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening, officials said. Five of the victims were young people going to school, said New York Governor Kathy Hotsul. The motive for the shooting is not yet known. The attack is not being investigated as a terrorist act, but authorities have not ruled out anything, said NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell. The city issued an emergency warning to residents on Wednesday, saying James was “wanted” and was seeking public advice. A U.S. military official was also involved in the manhunt, a spokesman told CNN. “We will catch this person,” Mayor Eric Adams told CNN’s “New Day” on Wednesday. “We will bring him to justice and hold him responsible for this horrific act on innocent people who use our subway.” The metro shootings represent a long-running nightmare scenario for New York, which relies heavily on the public transportation system. Subway passenger traffic crashed during the Covid pandemic, as many workers stayed home and passenger traffic did not return to pre-pandemic levels, in part due to caution about increasing violence in the transportation system. The following photo gallery contains graphic images. The discretion of the viewer is recommended.
How investigators caught James
Investigators investigating the shooting scene found a 9mm Glock pistol, three extended cartridges, two detonated smoke grenades, two unexploded ordnance grenades, an ax and the keys of a U-Haul van, said DeP . A credit card used to rent U-Haul was also found, two law enforcement sources told CNN. Two officials told CNN they believe the gun was blocked during the shooting. The U-Haul van was rented by James, police said, linking him to the incident. The van was towed near the station and has been cleared by the NYPD bomb team, police said. Investigators found no other weapons or explosives in the van, two law enforcement officials said. Officials said it appeared James may have been sleeping in the vehicle. A license plate reader said they spotted the truck moving over the Verrazzano Bridge from Staten Island in Brooklyn around 4 a.m. Tuesday. Authorities also monitored the purchase of a gas mask for James through an eBay account, two officials said. James has addresses in Wisconsin and Philadelphia, where he rented the U-Haul, Essig said. His family did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Inside the 36th Street station, video surveillance may not be available. A preliminary examination shows that there was some kind of malfunction with the camera system at the station, Adams told WCBS Radio. However, the Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) system has nearly 10,000 cameras, including nearly 600 cameras in the Brooklyn area where the attack took place, MTA President and CEO Janno Lieber said on Wednesday. “The result is that the NYPD was able to comb videos from other stations and in fact, as a result, they identified three prospects for the wanted colleague for this crime that entered the station,” he said.
How the shooting unfolded
People in the train car on Tuesday morning said smoke filled the car and gunshots were heard, causing people to push their way to the other side of the train in panic and confusion. Hourari Benkada, 27, who was shot in the back of the knee, said he thought he was sitting next to the shooter. Speaking from his hospital bed on Tuesday, Benkanda said he had boarded the last wagon of train N and sat next to a man with a bag that appeared to be wearing an MTA vest. The man dropped a “smoke bomb,” said Benkanda, a cleaner at the New Yorker Hotel. “And all you see (is) is smoke – black smoke … it leaves, and then people rush backwards,” Benkanda said. “This pregnant woman was in front of me. I was trying to help her. I did not know there were shots in the beginning. I just thought it was a black smoke bomb. “She said, ‘I’m pregnant with a baby.’ I hugged her. And then the rush continued. “I was pushed and that was when I was shot in the back of my knee.” The shooting started about 20 seconds after the train took off from 59th Street and felt like it lasted for almost 2 minutes, Benkada said. Benkanda heard other people in pain, but could not see them or the suspect because of the smoke, he said. Claire Tunkel, 46, who was in the subway car where the shootings took place, described the scene as chaotic. He said he could not see anything because of the smoke, but heard people shouting for help and others saying they were bleeding. “You could not see anything, but you could feel it,” he said. People were running in the front of the car and some fell to the ground, he said. “You could feel the bodies.” She took off her jacket and tied it around the leg of a man who suffered a gunshot wound, she told CNN. Tunkel, who later went to the hospital to inhale smoke, said many of the victims were lying on the floor of the subway platform after the train arrived at the station.
The suspect spoke of mass shootings in roaming videos
James, the suspect in the shooting, has been linked to several videos posted on a YouTube channel. A screenshot from one of the videos was used in a NYPD Crimestoppers brochure looking for shooting information. James spoke of violence and mass shootings in the videos, including one he posted Monday in which he said he thought of killing people who may have hurt him. “I’ve been through a lot of s ** t, where I can say I wanted to kill people. I wanted to see people die right in front of my king’s face right away. But I thought about the fact that, Hello friend, I do not want to go to any “The king’s prison,” he said. In another video released last week, James, who is black, screams about church abuse and racism in the workplace, using half-hearted and racist language. Many of the videos uploaded by James included references to the violence, including to a group of people he believed had abused him, in addition to broad social and racial groups he seemed to hate. In another video posted last month on the same channel, James said he had post-traumatic stress disorder. In this video, James said he left his home in Milwaukee on March 20. During the trip to the east, he said he was heading to the “danger zone”. “You know, of course it causes a lot of negative thoughts,” he said in the video. “I have a serious case of post-traumatic stress.” In a video released in February, he also criticized an Adams administration plan to address security and homelessness on the subway, in part through an expanded presence of mental health professionals. In a racist and bizarre recording, James called the new attempt “doomed to fail” and described his own negative experience with city health workers during a “mental health crisis in the ’90s,’ 80s and ’70s “. CNN’s Brynn Gingras, Mark Morales, Rob Frehse, Sharif Paget, Caroll Alvarado, Nicole Chavez, Alaa Elassar, Amir Vera, Travis Caldwell, Jason Hanna, Peter Nickeas, Yon Pomrenze, Elizabeth Wolfe, Chris Boyette, David Shortell,, Juan Alejandro Olarte-Cortes, Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.
