what we know about the attack which injured 23 people

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A shootout in the middle of rush hour. A man shot several times at passengers on a subway train in Sunset Park in Brooklyn, after throwing smoke bombs at 8:24 a.m. Tuesday. The report shows 23 wounded, including ten by bullets. “We were really lucky that it wasn’t much more serious”, said the New York police chief during a press conference. A suspect was arrested on Wednesday April 13, after a long manhunt. Franceinfo looks back on what we know about this tragedy.

Masked man shot passengers

As the New York subway trains are packed, a man wearing a gas mask “opened two canisters which let smoke escape into the train”reported Keechant Sewell, city ​​police chief. “He then shot a number of passengers as the train entered the 36th Street station.” in the Brooklyn neighborhood.

The attacker fired 33 bullets into the subway. At the scene, investigators found “a 9mm Glock handgun, three ammunition magazines, a hatchet, untriggered explosive devices, liquid believed to be gasoline”specifies the New York Times (in English)along with a vehicle key that allowed them to trace a recently rented, abandoned U-Haul American rental truck in Brooklyn.

A suspect has been arrested

After the attack, the police launched a real manhunt to find “a black man” measuring approximately 1m65 and “heavyweight”. A suspect was arrested Wednesday afternoon. Police said they took 62-year-old Frank Robert James into custody. He will be prosecuted for “terrorist attack”, under a law which prohibits “terrorist attacks and other violence against (…) public transport”announced the federal prosecutor Breon Peace during a press conference Wednesday evening, which specified that the suspect incurs the prison in perpetuity.

To find him, the police had released photos of the man who had rented the van, without specifying that it was the suspect. A reward of $50,000 was promised by the authorities, according to the New York Times.

New York Democratic Mayor Eric Adams said at least one security camera at the 36th Street subway station, where the shooting took place, was out of service.

At least 23 people were injured

“It looked like it was planned. (…) We were stuck in the train. (…) There was a lot of blood on the ground”, told one of the passengers on CNN. Photos and amateur videos showed pools of blood and people lying on the floor of a train, as well as on the platform of the 36th subway station in Sunset Park.

A passenger who was traveling on the train on the opposite platform told the New York Timescatching a young man who had been shot in the leg and was bleeding profusely. “He was so scared”, he testified. The young man also told her that he first saw the shooter at the New Utrecht Avenue station, four stops before 36th Street.

Among the victims, ten were shot, five of whom are in critical but stable condition, New York police and firefighters said. The other thirteen were injured in the scramble to get out of the subway or because of smoke inhalation. The 36th Street and 4th Avenue area around the subway station was cordoned off for much of Tuesday and many victims were treated on the spot.

The police ruled out the terrorist trail

Even if the motivations of the shooter are not yet known, the police, who opened an investigation, dismissed the terrorist track. “No explosives were found in the metro and there is no open investigation for an act of terrorism”said Keechant Sewell.

According to the New York police, the arrested individual is the one who was wanted. The man is said to have posted various videos on YouTube, in which he engages in long political tirades, sometimes virulent, in which he evokes racial issues, insecurity in New York, especially in the subway, and attacks homosexual people, or even the mayor of New York. “There have been posts that might be related to the person we are interested in, where he mentions homelessness, where he mentions New York, where he mentions Mayor Adams”confirmed the head of the NYPD.

Elected in November on security promises, the Democratic mayor and former police officer, Eric Adams, announced in February that he wanted to strengthen security in the metros by dislodging more than 1,000 homeless people who regularly take refuge there, reports the New York Times (in English). Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, New York has faced an increase in crime and the number of homicides has increased from 319 in 2019 to 488 in 2021.

Joe Biden praised the courage of civilians

“We won’t let go until we find the perpetrator,” promised the president of the United States, Joe Biden, traveling to Iowa. He also praised, on Twitter, “first responders and civilians who sprang into action”.

The day before, Joe Biden had announced measures against some of the firearms that proliferate in the United States, and which killed 45,000 people in the country in 2021, suicides included, according to the organization Gun Violence Archive.

For her part, the governor of the state of New York, Kathy Hochul, expressed her anger. “We’re sick of reading the headlines about crime, whether it’s shootings or the loss of a teenage girl or a 13-year-old. It has to stop,” she launched, alluding to several recent victims, including children, of shootings or stray bullets.


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