Source: Michael M. Santiago / Getty
The New York Police Department has named a Black man as a person of interest in the Brooklyn subway car shooting that left over 20 people injured on April 12.
Chief James Essig, the head of the Police Department’s chief of detectives told reporters that a number of weapons were recovered from the subway car including “guns, ammunition, a hatchet, gasoline, and a pair of keys to a U-Haul van,” according to NPR.
Authorities traced the keys back to a nearby vehicle that was registered under Frank R. James, who reportedly rented the van in Philadelphia. The 62-year-old Black man has addresses in both Wisconsin and Philadelphia, Essig said. Currently, the person of interest is still at large.
“We are endeavoring to locate him to determine his connection to the subway shooting if any,” the police chief added.
The tragic shooting took place just before 8:30 a.m. during rush hour on Tuesday in the Sunset Park area of Brooklyn. As the N train was approaching the 36th Street station from 59th Street, passengers seated in the second car recalled seeing a dark skin male toss two smoke grenades onto the ground. As the train slowly inched towards the 36th Street stop, witnesses said the man pulled out a Glock 9mm handgun and opened fire at least “33 times,” according to officials.
29 people were hospitalized following the shooting with non-life-threatening injuries “that included gunshot wounds, smoke inhalation, or from falling while trying to escape,” CNN reported. Initially, NYPD officials claimed that there were no working cameras in the station where the incident occurred, but on April 13, authorities said they were able to gain access to “an enormous range of video” from transit city cameras that may have reflected the events leading up to James boarding the N Train.
“The cops have been looking overnight at all of the stations, where he got on, where he might have got off,” said Metro Transit Authority CEO Janno Lieber on CBS Wednesday morning. “There’s an enormous range of video.”
“I think that in the one location by the turnstile, there was apparently a server problem, which they had been working on the day before,” Lieber added when asked why the cameras on the train where the shooting occurred weren’t in working order. “But the bigger issue is, there’s so much video evidence from all of the stations on this line that there are images of this fellow that are going to be found.”
Authorities uncovered disturbing YouTube videos of James, where he appeared to go off on “vitriolic” rants about Black women causing violence within the Black community and how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “genocidal.” In his latest video posted on April 11, James made a number of startling confessions, noting how “he wanted to kill people,” but feared the repercussions.
“I’ve been through a lot of s**t, where I can say I wanted to kill people. I wanted to watch people die right in front of my f**king face immediately. But I thought about the fact that, hey man, I don’t want to go to no f**king prison,” he said, according to CNN. In another video posted last week, James, who is Black, ranted about racism in the workplace and expressed hatred towards African Americans.
Police are offering a $50,000 reward to anyone with information about James’ whereabouts.
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