New York police have arrested the suspect accused of shooting 10 people on a packed subway car, on Wednesday.
Police had identified 62-year-old Frank James as the suspected gunman who detonated two smoke canisters as the train was pulling into a Brooklyn station, before firing 33 shots into the crowd.
“My fellow New Yorkers: we got him,” Mayor Eric Adams told a news conference announcing the arrest.
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James was spotted by officers on a Manhattan street, and arrested, said New York Police Department commissioner Keechant Sewell. He was taken into custody without incident and will be charged over Tuesday’s attack, she added.
Video footage circulating on social media showed a man resembling James handcuffed and being placed into a police car.
No one was killed in the attack, which also left 13 others injured as they scrambled to get out of the station or suffered smoke inhalation. None of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.
James had posted several videos on YouTube of himself delivering long, sometimes aggressive political tirades. His page was taken down later Wednesday for “violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.”
In his videos he also criticized New York’s mayor.
James’ sister, Catherine James Robinson, told The New York Times that she was “surprised” to see him named as a suspect, adding: “I don’t think he would do anything like that.”
She said she had had little contact with her brother for years, according to the newspaper, and she contradicted one detail given by police: they had said the shooter was around five feet five inches, but she said James was over six feet tall.
The 36th Street station in Brooklyn, where the train arrived as the attack was being carried out, was heavily patrolled by police on Wednesday as travelers waited for their trains.
“Today I was so reluctant, I actually tried to get a cab for like nearly maybe 20 minutes. I couldn’t find any and Uber was like $60 bucks, and so I was like ‘It’s okay, I’ll try my chance on the subway today,'” 38-year-old commuter Zeina Awedikian told AFP.
Others were more defiant. “No one is going to drive me away from the subway. The subway is in my DNA,” said 56-year-old Dennis Sughrue
‘You Are Looking For Me’
Although it was not stated in the announcement of his arrest, police sources told media outlets that the tip that James was in a McDonald’s restaurant came from him as the caller said something to the effect, “I think you are looking for me,” before giving his whereabouts.
When police went to the restaurant, he was not there but they found him at a nearby street corner and he gave himself up peacefully.
Photographs after the arrest showed him smirking at the cameras.
New York City officials had said on Tuesday that the mass shooting was not being investigated as a terrorist incident, but the federal prosecutor, Peace, slapped the terrorism charge on James saying that he “committed a heinous and premeditated attack on ordinary New Yorkers”.
James had left a long trail of hate messages with violent forebodings on social media going back several years.
Adams was critical of the social media companies who, he said, “had some responsibility”.
“Why we’re watching these postings and these threats every day, and no one is giving an early warning sign to law enforcement,” he told CNN.