At least twenty-nine people were injured, including ten by gunshot, Tuesday morning, April 12, according to a report by the Associated Press news agency, when shots rang out at rush hour in the New York subway. , in the Brooklyn neighborhood, causing scenes of chaos. According to a fire department spokesperson, there was “several shots” and smoke.
Keechant Sewell, the chief of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), the city’s police department, declared at the end of the afternoon that this attack was not the subject of a “investigation for terrorist act, at this stage”but that she “exclude nothing”. Twenty-three people were treated at the hospital, five of whom were in critical condition, New York Fire Department official Laura Kavanagh said, while Ms.me Sewell let it be known, for his part, that no injured person was in mortal danger.
“As the train pulled into the station, the individual put on a gas mask. He then opened a carboy that was in his bag and the car [du métro] filled with smoke. After that he started shooting”she said.
Authorities provided police with a photograph of the suspected shooter as well as the license plate of a pickup truck from rental company U-Haul. The vehicle was discovered unoccupied early Tuesday evening in a neighborhood about 4 miles (6.4 km) from the crime scene. The suspect is still at large.
A large police force
According to the NYPD chief, contrary to what was initially said by a fire department spokesperson, no explosive device was discovered at the scene of the attack. Investigators found smoke bombs, a handgun and three magazines, as well as a vehicle key that allowed them to trace to a recently rented and abandoned American rental truck U-Haul in Brooklyn. Police released the description of the individual who rented this vehicle in Philadelphia, a 62-year-old man “having addresses in Philadelphia and Wisconsin”without saying if it was the suspect.
The facts took place at 8:30 a.m. (2:30 p.m. in Paris), at rush hour, in station 36th Street in the borough of Brooklyn, south of Greenwood Cemetery. A large police force was still deployed in the middle of the day in this district of Sunset Park, where a large Asian community lives, and at least two helicopters were flying over the area. Many ambulances were on site. Several schools in Brooklyn had canceled all outings of their students.
Photos and home videos showed pools of blood and people lying on the floor of a subway train as well as on the platform at Station 36th Street, in a smoky atmosphere. In a videoa crowd can be seen coming out of the smoky metro cars, at station 36th Street, in the middle of shouts but without jostling. “A smoke grenade…a bomb went off, I would say two minutes before we got to the station”according to one of the passengers, Yav Montano, who spoke on CNN.
“I just focused on trying to get out as safely as I could.” CNN talks to passenger Yav Montano who was in the train… https://t.co/1Encjw3WRw
“It looked like it was planned (…). We were stuck in the car (…), there was blood on the ground. There was a lot of blood on the floor. »
Increase in crime
U.S. President Joe Biden, who announced new gun control measures on Monday, has been briefed on the shooting and the White House has offered assistance to New York authorities, the spokeswoman said. the executive, Jen Psaki. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul, Democrat, said she was monitoring the situation and was being kept informed of the investigation.
The attack took place as New York City has faced a spike in crime since the Covid-19 pandemic. Elected on security promises, the mayor of New York, the democrat Eric Adams, had launched at the end of January a plan to fight against the proliferation of firearms, after the death of two police officers shot dead during a intervention. But other gun dramas have made headlines since.
For the first quarter of 2022, the number of shootings and shootings in New York increased (from 260 to 296) compared to the same period in 2021, according to NYPD figures released last week.
–
