New Yorkers were trying to make sense of an attack Tuesday morning where a gunman filled a subway train with smoke before shooting multiple people in Brooklyn.
The gunman, who has not yet been identified, shot 10 people before fleeing the station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, law enforcement officials said Tuesday. At least six others were injured in the attack.
“We will not allow New Yorkers to be terrorized even by a single individual,” said Major Eric Adams in a video statement. “NYPD is searching for the suspect at large, and we will find him.”
Adams, who is isolating after testing positive for COVID-19 on Sunday, said police have not found any live explosive devices, but the assailant detonated smoke bombs to “cause havoc.”
The attack took place during Tuesday morning’s commute on a subway train in Sunset Park, a southwestern Brooklyn neighborhood that is about a 15-minute train ride to Manhattan.
NYC ATTACK:At least 10 people shot, shooter at large after attack in Brooklyn subway train, officials say
Here’s what we know about the attack.
What happened during the NYC subway shooting?
As a Manhattan-bound N train waited to enter the 36th Street station during rush hour before 8:30 am Tuesday, a man put on a gas mask, took a cannister out of his bag and opened it on the train, filling the train car with smoke, said New York City Police Commissioner Keechant L. Sewell.
The man then opened fire, striking multiple people on the subway and on the platform.
There were currently no known explosive devices on subway trains, Sewell said.
Who is the shooter?
Police were searching for the shooter, described as a Black man with a “heavy build” and who was wearing a green “construction-type vest” and gray hooded sweatshirt, Sewell said Tuesday.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul urged residents to stay vigilant at Tuesday’s news conference and called the incident an “active shooter situation.”
“This individual is still on the loose,” she said. “This person is dangerous.”
How many people were injured?
There were 16 people injured in the attack, including 10 people who were shot, said Laura Kavanagh, first deputy commissioner of the New York City Fire Department, at a Tuesday news conference. Other injuries resulted from smoke inhalation, shrapnel and “panic,” Kavanagh said.
Five of the victims were in critical but stable condition. There were no life-threatening injuries, Sewell said.
No Metropolitan Transportation Authority workers were injured, the New York’s Public Transit Union said in a statement.
Where is Sunset Park?
Sunset Park is a neighborhood in southwestern Brooklyn that is about a 15-minute train ride to Manhattan.
The neighborhood is predominantly home to Hispanic and Asian American communities: 34.8% of the neighborhood is Asian while 35.6% is Hispanic, according to 2019 data from New York University’s Furman Center. About 46% of the neighborhood’s population was foreign-born as of 2019.
Local schools, including Sunset Park High School, were locked down following the shooting.
Shooting comes amid uptick in crime on subway system
Gov. Hochul said Tuesday that New Yorkers are “sick and tired” of reading headlines about crime.
“No more mass shootings,” she said. “No more disrupting lives. No more creating heartbreak for people just trying to live their lives as normal New Yorkers. It hast to end now.”
The shooting comes amid an uptick in crime in New York City’s subway system, where transit crime increased 68% so far in 2022 in comparison to 2021, according to NYPD statistics.
“I’m committing the full resources of our state to fight this scourge of crime, this insanity that is seizing our cities, because we want to get back to normal,” Hochul said.
Contributing: Ryan W. Miller, Kevin McCoy, Gabriela Mirands and Eduard Cuevas, USA TODAY; Associated Press
Contact News Now Reporter Christine Fernando at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism