The suspect in the Brooklyn subway told police about the location – Daily Local

MICHAEL R. SISAC, MICHAEL BALM AND JENNIFER PELTZ

NEW YORK (AP) – A man accused of shooting 10 people on a Brooklyn subway train was arrested on Wednesday and charged with federal terrorism after a suspect called police to come after him, law enforcement officials said.

62-year-old Frank R. James was taken into custody about 30 hours after the violence on the train at rush hour, because of which people in the city were in fear.

“My friends in New York, we got it,” said Mayor Eric Adams.

James was due to appear in court on Thursday on charges of terrorist or other violent attacks on public transportation systems and carries a sentence of life imprisonment, U.S. Attorney General Brean Peace said.

In recent months, James has appeared in a video on his YouTube channel about racism and violence in the United States and about his fight against mental health in New York, and criticized Adams’ policy on mental health and safety in the subway. But the motives for the subway attack remain unclear, and there is no indication that James had links to terrorist organizations, international or otherwise, Pease said.

James did not answer journalists’ loud questions when he was taken to a police car on Wednesday afternoon. A few hours later, he was taken into custody by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. A lawyer representing him was sent a message asking for comment.

Police urged the public to help find him, posted his name and photo and even sent an alert to his mobile phone before they received a tip on Wednesday.

The clue was James, who called to say he knew he was wanted and that police could find him at McDonald’s in the East Village area of ​​Manhattan, two law enforcement officials said. They had no right to discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

James disappeared when officers arrived, but was soon spotted on a busy corner nearby, said department head Kenneth Corey.

Passers-by Alexei Korobov said he saw four police cars passing by, and when he caught up, James was in handcuffs and a crowd of people was looking at them.

“He had nowhere to run,” said Police Commissioner Kitchent Sewell.

The arrest came when the victims of the shooting and at least a dozen people injured in the attack were trying to recover.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to take the train again,” Hurary Bencada, a hotel manager in Manhattan who was injured in the leg, told CNN from a hospital bed.

Gov. Katie Hochul visited the 12-year-old victims at the hospital Tuesday night. The governor said one was heading to classes at Bar Manhattan Public College when he was hit by a bullet or shrapnel and needed surgery.

Guatemala’s foreign ministry said 18-year-old Guatemalan citizen Rudy Alfredo Perez Vazquez was hospitalized on Wednesday but was “out of danger” after being injured in the attack.

According to police, James detonated two smoke grenades and fired at least 33 shots from a 9mm pistol.

According to a police witness, when the first smoke grenade went off, the passenger asked what he was doing.

“Oh,” James said, launching a second, then swinging his pistol and opening fire, said Chief of Detectives James Essig.

When the train stopped at the station and the frightened riders fled, James apparently jumped on another train – the same one that many were heading for security, police said. He got off at the next station and disappeared into the most populous city in the country.

But James left behind many clues at the crime scene, including a gun he bought in Ohio in 2011 – ammunition stores, an ax, smoke bombs, gasoline, a bank card in his name and a U-Haul van key. which he leased Monday in Philadelphia, according to police and a lawsuit.

Tucked into an orange work jacket, which he apparently threw on a subway platform, there was a receipt for a shelter in Philadelphia. Governments found ammunition, targets and a gun barrel in a storage locker and learned he was there on Monday, the complaint said.

The van was found unoccupied near the station, where investigators believe James entered the subway system.

Surveillance cameras captured a van that arrived from Philadelphia early Tuesday, and a man in the same orange jacket leaving a car near the station.

James was born in New York but recently lived in Philadelphia and Milwaukee, authorities said. Bruce Allen, a neighbor near an apartment in Philadelphia where James has been staying for the past couple of weeks, said the man never spoke to him, even when he stopped by.

According to his video, James has worked in various productions and other works. Police said he was arrested 12 times in New York and New Jersey between 1990 and 2007 on a variety of charges, from hooliganism to possession of hacking devices, but he has not been convicted of felony.

His hours of scattered, swearing videos range from current events to the history of his life and fanatical statements about people of different backgrounds. James is black.

Some videos complain about Adams, the mental health of James, according to which he came to town many years ago, and the conditions in the subway. In one of the reports he tells about trains filled with homeless people, the lawsuit states.

In another, he condemns the treatment of black people in the United States and says, “The message to me is this: I had to get a gun and just started firing.”

The Brooklyn subway station, from where passengers fled the attack, opened on Wednesday morning, less than 24 hours after the violence.

Jude Jacques, who rides the subway to work as a fire safety director two blocks from the scene of the shooting, said he prays every morning, but had a special request Wednesday.

“I said, ‘God, it’s all in your hands,'” Jacques said. “I was annoyed and you can imagine why. Everyone is afraid because it happened. “

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Balsam reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Dipty Hajela, Jim Mustian and Nardas Hale in New York, Claudia Lauer of Philadelphia, Carrie Antlfinger of Milwaukee, Todd Richmond of Madison, Wisconsin, and Sonia Perez D. of Guatemala, Guatemala, Guatemala.