10 People Shot, 6 Injured on NYC Subway, Suspect’s Van Located: Authorities

• Multiple people were shot on a subway train in Brooklyn Tuesday morning, the FDNY said.
• The FDNY said 10 people were shot and six more were injured in the mass shooting.
• Police said the shooter donned a gas mask and smoke filled the train before the man opened fire.

Ten people were shot and more than a dozen injured on a New York City subway train in Brooklyn during a rush-hour mass shooting Tuesday morning, authorities said.

The shooting unfolded just before 8:30 a.m. as a Manhattan-bound N train pulled into the 36th Street subway station in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, authorities said.

The suspect put on a gas mask, opened a canister that filled the train with smoke, and then opened fire inside the car and on the platform, Commissioner Keechant Sewell of the New York City Police Department said during a press briefing outside the train station.

The shooting suspect — described by Sewell as a roughly 5-foot-5-inch Black man with a “heavy build” wearing a green construction vest and a grey hooded sweatshirt — remains at large.

Shortly after 5 p.m. local time, law enforcement located a U-haul cargo van on Kings Highway they believe is connected to the suspect. A law enforcement source told CNN that the NYPD’s bomb squad is responding to the scene.

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It was not immediately clear if the suspect was inside the vehicle when officers located the U-Haul van.

CNN reported that investigators identified the suspect in the shooting after finding a credit card at the scene that was used to rent the U-Haul van currently under investigation.

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, who also spoke at the briefing, called the suspect “dangerous” and asked New Yorkers to remain “vigilant” and “alert.”

 

AP Photo/John Minchillo

Sixteen people were injured in the incident, the New York City Fire Department said. Of the 10 people who were shot, five are in critical but stable condition, FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said.

Other injuries were related to smoke inhalation, shrapnel, and panic.

Victims were taken to NYU Langone Hospital — Brooklyn and NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, the fire department said.

Eight of the victims were taken to NYU Langone, a spokesperson from the hospital told Insider. Their injuries included gunshot wounds and smoke inhalation. All are in stable condition.

The FDNY initially reported finding “several undetonated devices” at the location of the shooting. The NYPD later said there were no active explosive devices at the scene as of 10 a.m. Mayor Eric Adams of New York City said in a video statement that “the suspect in today’s attack detonated smoke bombs to cause havoc.”

There is no known motive at this time, and the shooting is not being investigated as active terrorism, authorities said.

“We are using every available officer to look for the suspect,” an NYPD source told Insider.

The fire department was responding to reports of smoke at the 36th Street station in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn when it found multiple people shot on the platform, the FDNY said.

One witness told the New York Post there were so many rounds fired she “lost count.”

“There was, like, lots of them. I don’t even know how many,” she said.

Another witness, Yav Montano, told CNN he was in the train car when the shooting began.

He said that between the 59th Street and 36th Street stops on the N train, the car filled with smoke about two minutes before getting to the platform and he heard what he thought were fireworks but turned out to be gunshots.

“It seemed like it was planned,” Montano said. “As soon as the smoke flared up and engulfed everything, people migrated to the front of the car.”

He said one man was able to open one of the doors to move between cars but the second door was locked, so they were stuck in the car.

When the train got to the station, Montano said people ran out of the car. Blood was left behind on the floor of the train car, he said.

 

AP Photo/Kevin Hagen

Kelly Serrano was walking to the subway station Tuesday morning to go to the gym when she saw a crowd of people running from the station down Fourth Avenue, some of them screaming and crying. One of the women, through tears, told Serrano there were many people bleeding in the station, Serrano told Insider as she stood by the police barricade with her 4-year-old son.

“Thank God I didn’t go inside,” Serrano told Insider. “This is crazy. I take that train every day.”

At the scene, helicopters soared overhead as hundreds of law enforcement officers and firefighters flooded the area. About a one-block radius was closed to foot and car traffic through Tuesday afternoon.

The NYPD issued an emergency alert to people near the scene in Brooklyn, telling them to avoid the area between Third Avenue and Fifth Avenue from 20th Street to 40th Street.

 

Haven Orecchio

A spokesperson from the New York Department of Education told Insider all schools in the area had occupants sheltering in place.

The Tuesday shooting on the subway train in Brooklyn came amid a massive uptick in crime in the New York City subway system.

Subway crime is up 70% year to date, Insider’s Haven Orecchio-Egresitz previously reported.

“It’s dangerous,” Selma Castro told Insider as she waited for her 17-year-old son outside his school, Sunset Park High School.

“I have to take the train all the time,” Castro said, adding that she’s scared to take the subway or let her children on it but that they would continue to ride the rails out of necessity.

This story is developing. Please check back for updates.