A rush-hour shooting in a Brooklyn subway car in New York left at least 16 people injured. and set off scenes of chaos as panicked passengers fled the smoke-filled train onto the platform. New York Police Chief Keechant Sewell said the shooting was not being investigated as terrorism and noted that “although it has been a violent incident, apparently no one is fatally injured as a result of this case.” the american president Joe Biden said his administration “will not let up until the suspect” of the shooting is found on the Brooklyn subway who remains a fugitive. The gun wielded by the assailant jammed in the middle of the attack, preventing him from causing further damage, police sources told the newspaper. New York Post.
Of the ten gunshot wounds, half are in critical but stable condition., said a health source. Authorities were searching for the suspect. a man in an orange construction vest and gas mask who launched a device to fill the train car with smoke before starting the shots once morest the passengers inside, as it passed through Brooklyn.
The authorities asked for citizen cooperation to try to locate the attacker and police are looking for a U-Haul rental van that might be linked to the case, according to various media. Apparently, one or more security cameras installed in the subway station failed and they did not capture images of the suspect, something that is being investigated, which forced them to resort to recordings recorded by train passengers with their mobile phones.
feeling of panic
The statements of the witnesses to the local media and the recordings shared on social networks paint a chaotic scene, with the frightened passengers and the bleeding wounded, scattered throughout the car and on the platform floor while they are being treated. A witness who was present at the shooting, identified as Yav Montano, told CNN how passengers began to bump into each other, when “the smoke engulfed everything”and the feeling of panic experienced before the doors of the car were opened.
Authorities quickly suspended several subway lines as they inspected trains and stations. When asked if the attacker was targeting some kind of people, the local police indicated that “the victims have ethnic diversity” and ruled out the hypothesis of a terrorist attack. According to diplomatic sources, there is no record of any European injuries but there is still no official confirmation, and trying to find out if there is any Mexican citizen among those affectedsince in Sunset Park there is a large community from that country.
The police recovered a pistol and several high-capacity magazines in the New York subway station. The weapon, a Glock pistol, was apparently jammed, they told the New York Post police sources. “It was lucky that it jammed, because we might be talking regarding a lot more people in hospitals or worse. Dozens of other people might have been injured or have more serious injuries,” said one of those sources.
CNN, citing two police sources, reported that investigators fireworks and gunpowder recovered from the scene, with which the aggressor allegedly put up a smoke screen. In the surroundings of the station affected by the shooting, initially cut off to traffic and with schools confined as a precaution, a large number of ambulances and emergency units, including specialized bomb brigades, were piled up.
President Joe Biden mentioned the incident at the opening of his address at the state of Iowa, noting that the Justice Department and the FBI are working closely with the NYPD on the ground. “My wife Jill and I are praying for those injured and all those affected by this trauma.. And we’re grateful for all the first responders who sprang into action, including civilians, who didn’t hesitate to help their fellow travelers to try to protect them,” Trump said.
Worrying increase in armed violence
As information trickled in, many New Yorkers remembered the attempted terrorist attack on a busy Manhattan station in 2017whose author is serving a life sentence, but also the recent wave of shootings in the city. Since the beginning of 2022, more than 360 people have been victims of shootings in the Big Apple and only in the last two years this type of incident has increased by 72 percent, according to official data.
The incident came a day following Biden announced new gun control measures.especially increasing restrictions on so-called “ghost weapons,” which are difficult to trace as they can even be assembled at home.
Lax gun laws and constitutionally guaranteed rights to bear repeatedly hamper efforts to reduce the number of guns in circulation despite a majority of Americans who say they favor greater controls. Three-quarters of homicides in the United States are committed with weapons. and the number of revolvers and other types of weapons for sale continues to rise.
In this sense, the state governorKathy Hochul, assured that New Yorkers are “tired and fed up” with gun violence and promised to use all available tools to combat it, in collaboration with the city council. The Mayor of New York Eric Adamsconfined by covid-19, asked through local media in videoconference that the public provide all possible clues and help capture the suspect, whom he accused of committing an “act to terrorize the system.”
