The suspect allegedly responsible for a mass shooting aboard a Brooklyn subway train on April 12 has been captured. The shooting left more than twenty people injured, with at least ten victims suffering from gunshot wounds. However, no deaths were reported.
Frank R. James, 62, was taken into custody on Wednesday, more than 24 hours after the attack.
“We got him,” said Mayor Eric Adams, the first official to speak at an afternoon news conference. “We got him.”
James was arrested in the East Village and is being charged with committing a terrorist act on a mass transit system, according to Breon S. Peace, the U.S. attorney for New York’s Eastern District. If convicted, the charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Law enforcement received a tip that James was spotted at a McDonald’s on Sixth Street and First Avenue. When officers responded, James was not present, so they began driving around the neighborhood. Officers found him on the corner of St. Marks Place and First Avenue, one of the busier intersections in the East Village, and took him into custody without incident.
“We were able to shrink his world quickly,” New York Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said Wednesday. “There was nowhere left for him to run.”
In a press conference Tuesday, Sewell described the shooting that began shortly before 8:24 a.m. on an N train bound for Manhattan, traveling between the 59th and 36th Street stations.
“An individual on that train donned what appeared to be a gas mask,” Sewell said. “He then took a canister out of his bag and opened it. The train at that time began to fill with smoke. He then opened fire, striking multiple people on the subway and in the platform.”
Agents from dozens of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies immediately began searching for the suspect, who was wearing a green construction vest and a gray sweatshirt when he began the attack.
The NYPD found a U-Haul van with Arizona license plates 5 miles away, which they believe James drove to the location before abandoning it 8 hours after the attack. James had addresses in Wisconsin and Philadelphia, the police said, as well as connections to Ohio, New Jersey, and New York.
A credit card with James’ name and a key to the van, that he had apparently rented, were found at the scene of the shooting, along with a Glock 9-millimeter handgun, three magazines, a hatchet, fireworks, and a liquid believed to be gasoline.
James had been arrested in New York nine times previously between 1992 and 1998, including for possession of burglary tools, a criminal sex act, criminal tampering, and theft.
Another three arrests of James’ took place in New Jersey for trespass, larceny, and disorderly conduct, in 1991, 1992, and 2007. None of his arrests led to felony charges; most resulted in misdemeanors.
Investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were able to find records showing James legally purchased the firearm, because he had no felony offenses, from a federal firearms licensee in Ohio in 2011.
William Weimer, vice president of Phantom Fireworks, said that a man named Frank James from Milwaukee had purchased several brands of the fireworks from the Phantom Fireworks’ showroom outside of Racine, Wisconsin, in June 2021.
The attack began in a carriage of a subway train, with commuters trapped in the confined space until reaching the next station.
The Brooklyn Subway Station was packed with commuters when firefighters were called to reports of smoke at the 36th Street Station in Sunset Park. Three subway lines were affected. Upon arrival, firefighters found multiple people with gunshot wounds, and the NYPD was called to investigate the scene.
Initial reports from the scene differed between the FDNY and the NYPD. Firefighters stated they allegedly found undetonated explosives littering the scene, but a spokesperson for the NYPD has since refuted the claim of undetonated devices in the subway station.
The search for the suspect was hampered in the early hours of the investigation by malfunctioning street cameras in the nearby Brooklyn neighborhood that could otherwise have captured the suspect’s image, according to Mayor Adams.
Adams is overseeing New York City’s response to the mass shooting in Brooklyn from Gracie Mansion, where he is self-isolating two days after testing positive for COVID-19.
“We will not allow New Yorkers to be terrorized even by a single individual,” Adams said in a video posted to social media.
Adams said he had been in “constant communication” with police and fire officials on Tuesday morning about the attack.
“As of now, we have not found any live explosive devices,” Adams said. “But the suspect in today’s attack detonated smoke bombs to cause havoc.”
Graphic videos and images circulating online from the subway station showed panicked commuters pouring off the subway as soon as it came to a stop, with smoke billowing out behind them. Some were helping injured passengers before firefighters and police officers arrived.
NYPD officers responded quickly to the shooting event, with counterterrorism units responding to the scene.
The NYPD created a barrier around the station stretching half a mile to the north. Officials warned the public to avoid the area around 36th Street and 4th Avenue in Brooklyn. Pedestrians and vehicles were barred from 4th Avenue while the investigation was underway.
