New York City subway gunman Frank James was jailed on Thursday, April 14. He is accused of having “sown terror throughout the city”.
Frank James, the man suspected of shooting into a New York City subway train in the morning rush hour Tuesday, wounding 30 including 10 by gunshots according to justice, was placed in custody Thursday, accused of having “sown terror throughout the city” .
Dressed in a baggy khaki shirt, the suspect, a 62-year-old African American arrested without resistance the day before on the street in Manhattan, appeared for the first time in federal court in Brooklyn. Silently, sometimes taking notes between his two lawyers, he listened to the charges against him, especially that of a “terrorist attack” which puts him at risk of life in prison. Judge Roanne Mann ordered him remanded in custody.
He “opened fire on passengers on a crowded subway train, disrupting their morning commute in a way this city hasn’t seen in over 20 years,” said prosecutor Sara Winik, referring to the deadly September 11, 2001 attacks that they resulted in permanently traumatized New York. The suspect was wearing a gas mask and set off two smoke devices, filling the train with smoke before firing. The prosecution has revised the budget upwards, bringing it to 30 injured, including 10 from bullets, against 23 at the beginning.
“Carefully Planned”
“His attack was premeditated, was carefully planned and struck terror among the victims and throughout the city,” the prosecutor added. If this bloody attack, perpetrated in a busy station south of Brooklyn, the “36th Street”, did not cause deaths, it has aroused great emotion in the megalopolis of almost 9 million inhabitants, already hit by an increase in crime and shootings from the Covid-19 pandemic. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, NYPD documented no fewer than 14 separate shootings and shootings, including in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and four homicides.
Frank James’ attorney, Mia Eisner-Grynberg, has warned against any “hasty judgment” of her client, who has already been arrested 12 times in the past for various crimes. “Yesterday Mr James saw his picture of him on the news, he called the police for help, he said where he was,” she said. The police had traced Frank James in particular thanks to the key of a van he rented, discovered at the crime scene.
The man had a YouTube page, called “prophetoftruth88” (prophet of truth) where he was seen launching into long, sometimes rambling and vehement tirades about racial issues and insecurity in New York.
Report
The circumstances under which the suspect was arrested in the East Village neighborhood on Tuesday have not been fully clarified. In addition to the suspect himself, other people would have claimed to have reported his presence to the New York police “Crime Stoppers” telephone platform, which had offered a $ 50,000 reward for this case.
Thus, a 21-year-old Syrian technician, Zack Tahhan, who arrived in the United States five years ago, became a star of social networks, where the hashtag #ThankYouZack circulated, after claiming to have identified Frank James and warned the police, while he was near the place of arrest. But Francisco Puebla, the Mexican manager of Saifee, a garden shop located in the same area, told AFP it was his intervention, not Zack Tahhan’s, that was decisive.
According to police, there was indeed a report locating the suspect at a McDonald’s. “The officers arrived at McDonald’s. He wasn’t there. They went around the neighborhood, saw him at the corner of Saint Marks (Place) and First Avenue and arrested him,” a McDonald’s official said Wednesday. NYPD, John Miller.
