Police Name Person of Interest in Brooklyn Subway Shooting

Police have named a person of interest in the Brooklyn subway shooting incident that injured 29 people on Tuesday morning, including ten people who suffered gunshot wounds.

Frank James, 62, of Philadelphia is the renter of a U-Haul van believed to be connected to the case, CBS News reported. Police say they are trying to locate James and are offering a $50,000 reward in the case.

“We do have a person of interest in this investigation, but we need the public’s assistance with additional information,” police commissioner Keechant Sewell said at a news conference Tuesday evening. “We are truly fortunate that this was not significantly worse than it was.”

After police uncovered James’s “concerning” social-media posts, the NYPD made the decision to increase security for Mayor Eric Adams.

“There are some postings possibly connected to our person of interest where he mentions homelessness, he mentioned New York, and he does mention Mayor Adams, and as a result of that abundance of caution, we’re are going to heighten his security detail,” Sewell said.

James reportedly published a number of rants on YouTube, including a video last month in which he said he was “entering the danger zone,” the New York Post reported. 

“Mr. Mayor, I’m a victim of your mental-health program,” he said in a video.

James also said he is “full of hate, full of anger, and full of bitterness” and ranted about the “horror show” of the city’s mental-health services. 

“What’s going on in that place is violence,” he said about a facility he said he received care from. “Not physical violence,” he said, “but the kind of violence a child experiences in grade school… that would make him go get a gun and shooting motherf***ers.”

He also posted rants about race issues and suggested that the war in Ukraine is evidence that black people are treated poorly in society.

“These white motherf***ers, this is what they do,” he said. “Ultimately at the end of the day they kill and commit genocide against each other. What do you think they gonna do to your black ass?”

“It’s just a matter of time before these white motherf***ers decide, ‘Hey listen. Enough is enough. These n****** got to go,’” he said.

He went on: “And what’re you going to do? You gonna fight. And guess what? You gonna die. Cause unlike President [Zelensky] over in Ukraine, nobody has your back. The whole world is against you. And you’re against your f***ing self. So why should you be alive again is the f***ing question. Why should a n***** be alive on this planet? Besides to pick cotton or chop sugar cane or tobacco.”

“And so the message to me is: I should have gotten a gun, and just started shooting motherf***ers,” he concluded. “Or I should have gotten some dope and started shooting or starting hitting bitches in the head, robbing old ladies, you know what the f*** it is.”

Police have not accused James of being the subway gunman.

James was named as a person of interest shortly after police located the U-Haul van. Police sources told the New York Post and the Associated Press that the white truck with Arizona plates was recovered in Gravesend on West Third Street near Kings Highway. The van was discovered after investigators found a credit card at the scene of the shooting that they believe belongs to the gunman, according to the New York Post. One of the charges on the card was for a rental out of Philadelphia.

Police closed off a street about four miles from the shooting scene and cleared nearby businesses on Tuesday evening as they awaited a bomb squad and a highly specialized emergency-services unit, the AP reported.

PHOTOS: Brooklyn Subway Station Attack

The discovery of the van comes as police continue to search for the gunman, who remains at large. Mayor Adams told WCBS 880 AM earlier on Tuesday that there was a “malfunction with the camera system at that particular station” where the attack happened.

The city is reportedly working with the MTA to determine whether all of the cameras at the station were affected by the malfunction. 

A suspect wearing something resembling an MTA uniform — an orange construction vest and a gas mask — threw a smoke canister and opened fire on a rush-hour subway train that pulled into a station in the Sunset Park neighborhood around 8:30 a.m.

The shooting left five people in critical condition, though all are expected to survive, the AP reported. At least 29 people were treated at hospitals for gunshot wounds, smoke inhalation, and other conditions, the report adds.

Sewell said the attack is not being investigated as terrorism, but she refused to rule anything out. The shooter’s motive is currently unknown.

MTA head Janno Lieber told 1010Wins on Tuesday afternoon that there is “no indication of why” that particular station was targeted.

“What the motivation of this maniac may or may not have been, it’s too premature to say,” Lieber added.

President Joe Biden said Tuesday afternoon during an unrelated speech in Iowa that he and First Lady Jill Biden are praying for the victims of the attack.

“My team has been in touch with Mayor Adams and New York’s police commissioner, and the Department of Justice and the FBI are working closely with the NYPD on the ground,” Biden said. “We’re gonna continue to stay in close contact with New York authorities and as we learn more about the situation over the coming hours and days.

“We’re not letting up on it” until the suspect is found, the president said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Governor Kathy Hochul warned New Yorkers to be vigilant, saying the “dangerous” suspect is “still on the loose.”

“This is an active shooter situation right now in the city of New York,” she added.

John Butsikares, a freshman at Brooklyn Tech, told National Review that while he didn’t see the attack itself, he did witness the aftermath while he was on his way to school Tuesday morning.

“I didn’t know what had happened at first, but after I found out, it was pretty scary,” Butsikares said. The high-school student noted that he uses the subway every day and is “definitely a little more scared now” to continue doing so.