At least 16 people were injured, 10 of them were shot, in a Brooklyn subway station during the morning rush on Tuesday, April 12 after a man discharged a canister of smoke and opened fire on a N train before fleeing.
The D and N trains are popular because they provide express service into New York’s Midtown Manhattan.
According to police, the gunfire caused panic and disorder on board the train.
During a press conference, New York Governor Kathy Hochul remarked, “This individual is still on the loose, and this individual is dangerous.” Officials said they were seeking for a man around 5-foot-5 and 180 pounds who was wearing a green construction vest during the attack.
Shots rang out inside a Manhattan-bound N train as it was moving into the 36th Street Station at about 8:24 a.m., according to NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who spoke to media on Tuesday.
“The suspect was in the railway car, and the shooting started there,” she explained. “The subject put on a gas mask as the train approached the station.” The car soon began to fill with smoke after he opened a canister in his luggage. He then started shooting.”
According to police, none of the injured are in serious condition, and the attack is not being considered a terrorist act. Speaking to reporters, Mayor Eric Adams described the attack as an attempt to terrorize subway riders.
“Anytime you have a guy who utilizes a smoke device, discharges a weapon in the system, and seems to put a gas mask on his face, that is a somebody who is trying to frighten our system,” Adams said MSNBC.
Adams, a former police officer who was elected to Congress by voters fearful of crime, promised to greatly enhance the NYPD’s presence on the tracks.
“What we’re going to do to help… relieve some of the apprehension,” he continued, “is we’re going to quadruple our enforcement.” “To complement the 4-to-12 tour police officers, we’re keeping our day tour police officers.” According to NBC New York, police have found the suspect’s gun and his backpack, which contained several unused smoke canisters and pyrotechnics.
According to police, the gun used during the incident jammed, limiting the number of casualties caused by the rampage. As the incident occurred, passengers, including some of the injured, stumbled off of the train, with a few of them boarding a R train across the platform to get away, according to witnesses and law enforcement sources.
In the hurried scramble to get away from the N train, at least six others were injured, according to the FDNY.
Officers flooded the area in search of security-camera footage that might show the culprit, but one of the station’s surveillance cameras was broken, reducing the time it took to apprehend the perpetrator. Dermot Shea, a former commissioner of the New York City Police Department, encouraged the public not to jump to judgments based on preliminary information.
“It’s crucial to understand that a scenario like this might be chaotic. “You might have all kinds of material flooding in, and professional detectives have to go through it to figure out what is true versus what someone perceived in a brief second,” Shea said MSNBC.