The man suspected of having fired in the New York subway at rush hour Tuesday morning, injuring 23, including 10 by bullets, was arrested on Wednesday and will be prosecuted for “terrorist attack”, announced the authorities.
The suspect, who had caused chaos the day before in the underground network, was arrested in Manhattan at 1:42 p.m. thanks to a report, according to the New York police. “We got it”, welcomed at a press conference the Democratic Mayor of New York Eric Adams, expected at the turn on the theme of the fight against crime, he who had made it a campaign theme to be elected last year.
Police had been looking for more than 24 hours for a 62-year-old African-American accused of multiple shootings in a line N convoy at the “36th street” station in south Brooklyn.
>> Read about it: Several injured after a shooting in the New York subway
The man, known to the police, had already been arrested 12 times in New York and New Jersey, in particular for sexual offences, theft or even a disturbance of public order, authorities said. But he had never been convicted of a crime in New York State.
He is now “under federal prosecution for his act, a terrorist attack on public transport”, announced the federal police officer Michael Driscoll. “He will appear in federal court in Brooklyn and, if convicted, will face a life sentence,” prosecutor Breon Peace added.
$50,000 reward
On Wednesday, New Yorkers received an “urgent” message on their phones asking them to deliver any useful information to investigators. A reward of 50,000 dollars had been put on the table.
The man had a YouTube page, dubbed “prophetoftruth88” (prophet of truth), removed Wednesday morning for “violating community rules” from the site. He posted multiple videos where we see him launching long tirades, sometimes rambling and vehement, in which he discusses racial issues, insecurity in New York, especially on the subway, and attacks homosexuals or to new mayor Eric Adams.
Life resumes its course
While the hunt for the shooter, described as “dangerous” the day before, continued, millions of New Yorkers took to the subway, one of the largest networks in the world, to go to work, some posting selfies on the social networks to show that life was getting back to normal.
“You don’t get up in the morning thinking you’re not going to make it home or that you’re going to hurt yourself going there. It’s New York, the city never stops,” said a stagehand. 35, while worrying that the suspect is still in the wild. “I always pay attention to my surroundings since 9/11. [2001]. But there have been more incidents on the docks recently, so I’m paying more attention,” added another woman.
“We were lucky”
Tuesday morning around 8:30 a.m. (2:30 p.m. in Switzerland), at a time when the metro trains are crowded, the individual, who was wearing a gas mask, lit two devices which smoked the car, then shot at the passengers while as the convoy entered the station.
The shooting took place in the “36th Street” subway station in Brooklyn. [John Minchillo – Keystone]“We were really lucky that it wasn’t much more serious,” said New York Police Chief (NYPD) Keechant Sewell, summing up the authorities’ relief. The suspect fired 33 rounds.
The attack came as New York has faced a spike in crime since the Covid-19 pandemic, with the number of homicides rising from 319 in 2019 to 488 in 2021, although the annual toll remains well in below the more than 2000 per year recorded in the early 1990s.
Shootings have also remained on the rise since the start of the year, going from 260 to 296 in the first quarter of 2022, according to police figures, some of which have made an impression, such as the death on Friday of a 17-year-old girl. , shot dead outside a high school in the Bronx.
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