On Wednesday, the New York City subway system was working as it always does: not perfect, but overall reasonably reliable. The stop on 36th Street in Brooklyn, where a man detonated smoke grenades and shot the crowd with a handgun on Tuesday, was also open again. A total of 23 people were injured in the attack, ten suffered gunshot wounds. Four people were still being treated in hospital as of Wednesday. Miraculously, no one was killed, despite the attacker firing at the passengers indiscriminately.
The perpetrator was initially still on the run on Wednesday, but was finally arrested in Manhattan in the afternoon. The police had previously collected some clues as to his identity. According to the authorities, it is a 62-year-old man named Frank J. He resides in the states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Initially, Frank J. was said to be a “person of interest,” but Mayor Eric Adams said Wednesday that J. is now officially a suspect. According to the authorities, Frank J., who was born in New York, is known to the police – he has already been arrested nine times in different US states, it said. According to initial investigation results, he acted alone. The background to the motive was initially unclear.
At the scene, police found the suspect’s credit card and the keys to a van. J. had rented this in Philadelphia a few days ago. Apparently he drove the car to a subway station where he boarded the N-Train, on which he later opened fire. In New York folklore, the N-Train is called the “N for Never” because it is said to never come (another train on the same line, the R-Train, is nicknamed the “R for Rarely” because it is said to come so infrequently ). But on Tuesday the N-Train came, and with it came Frank J.
His weapons: a pistol, a can of gasoline, several firecrackers
In addition to the credit card and keys to the van, police found a 9mm Glock pistol, ammunition, a can of gasoline and some fireworks at the scene. As for the fireworks, authorities said they were purchased by a man named Frank J. in Wisconsin. It is assumed that this is the suspect.
Frank J. put on a gas mask in an N-Train car at 8:24 a.m. Tuesday and opened a canister from which smoke escaped. There was initially no information about the substance, but some of the injured apparently suffered from mild respiratory poisoning. He then fired 33 times into the crowd. According to media reports, he only stopped shooting because his pistol stopped working. It seems puzzling how J. fired 33 shots in a fully occupied subway car only ten times and didn’t kill anyone.
The police had released a photo of the suspect taken from his YouTube channel. There, J. left some videos under the username “prophetoftruth88” in which he criticized New York Mayor Eric Adams, among others. The videos are partly detailed tirades, the topics are far-reaching. It’s about racial hatred and violence, but also about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. The number 88, which Frank J. uses in his username, is popular with Nazis because the eighth letter of the alphabet is H. The 88 stands for “Heil Hitler”. In the case of Frank J., a Nazi background would be somewhat surprising given that he is African-American.
There are surveillance cameras in all New York City subway stations, but some did not work in the station where the attack took place, according to authorities. The police had therefore asked citizens to make videos from mobile phones available. Every snippet can be important. A reward of $50,000 was offered for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrator. The man is now to be charged with violating a law that prohibits “terrorist and other violent attacks” on public transport. If convicted, he faces a life sentence.