A manhunt is under way for the person who used a gas canister and opened fire on a subway in Brooklyn.
As a train came into the station in Brooklyn, New York, on Tuesday morning at least 16 people were hurt when a passenger put on a gas mask and then started shooting at people, police said. The manhunt is on for the person who did this.
They said he was a 5-foot-5-inch African-American man with a heavy build who was wearing a green construction vest and a gray sweatshirt. The shooter fled the scene.
Law enforcement sources say that investigators have cell phone video from a person who saw the suspect. This shows the suspect, the source says. In internal emails from the NYPD, they say that investigators are also looking for a U-Haul truck that is said to be linked to the incident.
It’s a joint investigation between the FBI and the NYPD, and the FBI is following “every viable lead,” says Michael J. Driscoll, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI New York Field Office.
There was a lot of gunfire just before 8:30 this morning in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, a working class neighborhood that isn’t close to any of the city’s tourist attractions. There was a lot of smoke in the train as it moved between stations. People on the train saw blood stains on the floor.
On the train, and also on the platform, someone shot people, New York City Police Commissioner Keechan Sewell said, First responders came to the station and found people who had been shot and others who had been hurt in the chaos.
FDNY First Deputy Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said that 10 people were shot, and five of them were in critical but stable condition, but they were not dead. It also caused smoke inhalation, shrapnel, and panic that led to six more people getting hurt in this attack, the woman told her story. People who were hurt don’t seem to be in any danger, says Sewell.
Police sources told CNN that a gun was found in the station. It’s not clear if the gun was used in the attack.
Investigators found a lot of high-capacity magazines at the scene, three law enforcement officials say. Two people say they think the gun got stuck during the shooting. Besides fireworks and gunpowder, two law enforcement sources told CNN that they also found them at the scene.
Said there are no active bombs on trains. The attack is not being looked into as a terrorist act, but authorities haven’t ruled anything out, said the woman who spoke to the group.
The images in the photo gallery below are very interesting. Watching at your own risk is advised.
In the last two years, there has been a big rise in shootings in New York City. Mayor Eric Adams has been trying to stop the violence on the subway as a big part of his job.
Transit crime, as a whole, has gone up 68% this year, which is close to where it was before the pandemic. During this time last year, 367 crimes were reported, compared to 617 this year, according to an NYPD summary of stats through Sunday.
Witnesses say that smoke filled the train.
On the express train to work, Yav Montano told CNN that smoke started to fill the subway car. He also heard sounds like fireworks. Angry passengers tried to move to another train car to get away from the smoke, he said.
Smoke filled the whole car. “It was so black with smoke that I couldn’t even use my mask any more. It was a waste of time.”
People on the train at the time: about 40 to 50. Many people were hurt, but he didn’t know how many people were hurt. He said he saw many people with blood on them on the floor of the train. A lot of people jumped out of the train when it arrived at 36th Street.
Will Wylde was on the subway on Tuesday morning when he heard a lot of noise in the train car next to him. A man said that people started banging on the doors between subway cars, which are often locked. They were trying to get through to get to the other side.
As soon as a subway train pulls into the station, people rush to get off. This video was taken by Wylde. Smells like smoke are coming from where someone was shot, and people can be heard yelling in the video. An injured and bleeding person in a blue hoodie is helped off the train by a person in a blue hoodie who is also bleeding. The video shows that a second man gets off the train soon after.
Police told people to stay away from the area of 36th Street and 4th Avenue in Brooklyn, where there was a lot of emergency service workers and a lot of people.
Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood is in the southwest part of the city and has a lot of people who are Asian and Hispanic. According to the US Census, each group makes up about a third of the more than 135,000 people who live there.
People from the Fujian province in China are moving to the southern part of the neighborhood because it has a lot of people from that area.
The number of shootings in New York is on the rise
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, violence has risen in New York City and across the United States, reversing a decades-long downward trend. This shooting comes at the same time.
According to data from the NYPD through Sunday, more than 360 people have been shot this year in 322 shooting incidents. This is an increase of about 8% and 9% from last year. At least 72.2 percent more people in New York have been shot in the last two years.
In the Gun Violence Archive, they say that Tuesday’s subway attack is the second mass shooting in Brooklyn this year and the fourth in New York State. This means that at least four people were shot in the attack. A Brooklyn event hall saw its first mass shooting of the year on January 13, when a man opened fire at a party.
Mayor Adams said that the whole country is seeing a lot of violence, not just New York City.
People across the country are dealing with the same thing right now, which is why this is a national response, Adams said to Dana Bash on CNN. “We need to have a national response to this.”
There have been 131 mass shootings in the United States this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks gun deaths and injuries. Tuesday’s shooting was one of the 131 this year. More than 547 people were hurt in the shootings.
There were more patrols and people were asked to report anything unusual after the attack.