A madman disguised as a construction worker turned a Brooklyn subway car into a bloodbath during the early-morning rush Tuesday, setting off smoke bombs before opening fire and wounding 29, officials said.
The shooter — who has yet to be apprehended — was wearing a neon orange and green construction vest and a neon green helmet and muttering to himself on a Manhattan-bound N train when he unleashed bloody havoc just before 8:30 a.m.
The gunman suddenly put on a gas mask and released two smoke grenades as the car pulled into the 36th Street station in Sunset Park, cops said.
“Oops, my bad,” the suspect mumbled, according to witness Fitim Gjeloshi, after opening the canister and then pulling out an ax and dropping it to the floor.
As the crowded subway car filled with smoke, the shooter took out a 9mm semiautomatic Glock and fired 33 rounds at commuters, hitting 10 victims and leaving at least 19 others wounded. Those hurt included two teens ages 15 and 19, a pregnant woman who was shot in the leg, seven men and three women, law-enforcement sources said.
Of the ten victims hit by gunfire, five were listed in critical but stable condition, while others suffered from smoke inhalation and other related injuries.
Police later identified Frank James, 62, as a “person of interest” in the shooting but have not yet determined if he was the triggerman.
James had previously railed against Mayor Eric Adams and made bizarre threatening rants on YouTube.
He said he’d been treated for mental-health issues at a facility with “violence,’’ not “physical but the kind of violence a child experiences in grade school … that would make him go get a gun and shooting motherf–kers.”
A straphanger named Claire who witnessed the shooting said of the gunman, “I thought he was an MTA worker at first,” adding so many rounds were fired, she “lost count.”
The gun used by the shooter, who had three extended magazines on him, jammed in the midst of the bloodshed. One of the magazines was found in a backpack, the other on a seat and the third in the weapon.
The gun’s malfunction was a fluke that law-enforcement sources likened to a miracle.
“It was lucky that it jammed because we could be talking about a lot more people in hospitals or worse,’’ a law-enforcement source said.
“Dozens more people would have been wounded or more seriously injured.’’
Chaos
Footage taken from the chaotic scene showed screaming passengers spilling out onto the platform as soon as the train doors opened and clouds of smoke billowing out.
Graphic photos on social media showed the injured lying on bloodstained subway platform floors.
As the mayhem unfolded, straphangers were evacuated to the R train across the platform, where some got off at the next stop and others were rushed to hospitals.
“They just started yelling,” said Gaba Semein, 16, who was at the 36th Street station en route to class when the mayhem unfolded, referring to people around him.
“They told us to switch to the R. Everyone got on, including a guy who got shot. He hobbled on.”
Cops initially believed the suspect blended in with other commuters and boarded the R train before getting off at the next stop on 25th street and fleeing but police are still investigating exactly how he escaped.
Their investigation was hampered by what Mayor Adams called a “malfunction” with the subway station’s cameras, which weren’t working on the platform or the turnstiles at the time of the incident, law-enforcement sources said.
While the suspect was already on the train after having entered at another location, the surveillance footage could have caught him leaving after the attack.
“We do know that there was a problem with the camera at that particular station. We’re investigating if there were any video footage there but at this time we’re tracking down a number of leads,” Adams said on 1010Wins.
Late Tuesday afternoon, cops found a U-Haul van with Arizona plates in Gravesend that was rented by James, and law-enforcement sources said they believe it was driven to a subway station on Kings Highway before the shooting.
Sources said the driver of the van boarded a train near where the vehicle was parked before briefly getting off at the 62nd Street/New Utrecht Avenue station to walk around. He then hopped back on the subway heading towards Manhattan, the sources added.
Investigators were able to tie the van to James after finding a credit card at the scene that had charges for a gas mask, smoke bombs and the U-Haul rental out of Philadelphia, law-enforcement sources said.
The key to the U-Haul was found at the scene of the shooting, too, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said during an evening news briefing.
A neighbor who saw a black man park the U-Haul on Monday night on West Third Street near Kings Highway reported it to police late Tuesday after realizing there’d been a shooting on a nearby train line.
“Too many coincidences. What are you going to do with a U-Haul in the ass-end of Brooklyn with Arizona plates?” the neighbor said.
But sources said the van tied to James crossed the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge at about 4 a.m. Tuesday before parking near a Brooklyn subway station two hours later.
Authorities have been searching for James in Manhattan homeless shelters after they determined he used his credit card at a Duane Reade on Eight Avenue, sources said. It was unclear when he made the purchase.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said the shooting isn’t being investigated as an act of terrorism at the moment and noted none of the victims were of a particular ethnic group, but she also added that no motive has been ruled out.
“At this time we still do not know the suspect’s motivation,” Sewell later said.
The probe
Following a search of the scene, police recovered the jammed gun and the extended magazines, which are capable of holding more bullets than the standard number of rounds found in a typical clip.
Cops also found a slew of other weapons, including a hatchet, a can of pepper spray, two gas canisters, gasoline, two non-detonated smoke grenades, a bag full of fireworks and another satchel holding what appears to be BB pellets at the scene, police and sources said.
An image of one of the bags and obtained by The Post showed a number of smoke bombs, fireworks and a hobby fuse.
Several “undetonated devices” were also around at the scene, the FDNY said, and shortly after, the NYPD tweeted “There are no active explosive devices at this time.”
By early Wednesday morning, the NYPD had wrapped up part of their investigation at the 36th Street station — allowing trains in both directions to resume stopping there, according to the MTA’s official subway Twitter feed.
The FDNY transported 16 patients to NYU Langone of Brooklyn, Kings County Hospital, Methodist Hospital and Maimonides Hospital and another 13 walked themselves to the infirmary.
By late Tuesday, many had been released.
During an afternoon news briefing, a visibly angry Gov. Kathy Hochul decried the bloodshed.
“We say no more — no more mass shootings, no more disrupting lives, no more creating heartbreak for people just trying to live their lives as normal New Yorkers. It has to end, and it ends now,” Hochul said.
“We are sick and tired of reading headlines about crime, whether mass shootings or the loss of a teenage girl or a 13-year-old. It has to stop,” she continued, adding she is “committing the full resources” of the state to cut down on crime.
Adams, who is currently isolated with COVID-19, urged New Yorkers to come forward with any information.
“The suspect in today’s attack detonated smoke bombs to cause havoc. We will not allow New Yorkers to be terrorized even by a single individual. The NYPD is searching for the suspect at large, and we will find him, but we ask the public to come forward with any information that may help us in this investigation,” Adams said.
“I wish to thank all of the first responders who responded to the scene or at the local hospitals, helping with today’s incident. You are what make New York the greatest city in the world, and I thank you for supporting your fellow New Yorkers.”
Additional reporting by Tina Moore, Emily Crane and Amanda Woods
Anyone with information on the shooting should call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS or log onto the CrimeStoppers website.
