A shooting at rush hour 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 that the shooting was not being investigated as terrorism and noted that “although it has been a violent incident, apparently no one has been fatally injured as a result of this case.” american president Joe Biden said his administration “will not relent until the suspect is found” in the shooting in 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 wounded by gunshots, half are in critical but stable condition, said a health source. Authorities were looking for the suspect, a man in an orange construction vest and gas mask who released a device to fill the train car with smoke before opening fire on the commuters inside as it passed through Brooklyn.
The authorities requested citizen cooperation to try to locate the attacker and Police are looking for a U-Haul rental van that could 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 scared passengers and the injured bleeding, scattered throughout the carriage 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 the passengers began to bump into each other, when “the smoke engulfed everything”and the feeling of panic experienced before the carriage doors opened.
Authorities quickly suspended several subway lines while they inspected trains and stations. To the question about whether the attacker had any kind of people as a target, 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 an attempt is being made to find out if there are any Mexican citizens among those affectedsince in Sunset Park there is a great community of that country.
The police recovered a pistol and several high-capacity chargers 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 got stuck, because we could be talking about a lot more people in hospitals or worse. Dozens of more people could have been injured or have more serious injuries,” said one of those sources.
CNN, citing two police sources, reported that investigators fireworks and gunpowder were recovered from the scene, with which the attacker allegedly put together a smoke screen. In the surroundings of the station affected by the shooting, initially closed to traffic and with schools confined as a precaution, a large number of ambulances and emergency units, including specialized bomb brigades, piled up.
President Joe Biden mentioned the incident at the opening of his Iowa state address, noting that the Department of Justice and the FBI are working closely with the NYPD on the ground. “My wife Jill and I are praying for those injured and all affected by this trauma.. And we are grateful for all the first responders who went into action, including civilians, who did not hesitate to help their fellow travelers to try to protect them,” said the US president.
Worrying rise in gun violence
As the information trickled in, many New Yorkers recalled the attempted terrorist attack on a busy Manhattan station in 2017, whose perpetrator is sentenced to life in prison, 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 after Biden announced new gun control measures.especially increasing restrictions on so-called “ghost weapons”, which are difficult to trace since they can even be assembled at home.
Lax gun laws and the right to carry guns guaranteed in the Constitution repeatedly hamper efforts to reduce the number of guns in circulation despite the fact that most Americans 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 governor of the stateKathy Hochul, He assured that New Yorkers are “tired and sick” of gun violence and vowed to use all available tools to combat it, in collaboration with the city council. New York mayor Eric Adamsconfined by covid-19, asked through the 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.”
