Suspect sought after 10 are shot at New York City subway station

New York City officials said a suspect was being sought after 10 people suffered gunshot wounds among 16 injured during a chaotic incident during Tuesday morning’s commute at a subway station in Brooklyn.

Five people were in area hospitals in critical condition, New York Fire Department Acting Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said at a midday news conference, although Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell at the same briefing said earlier that none of the injuries was considered life-threatening.

Sewell said the attack was not being investigated as terrorism, but added that she was “not ruling out anything.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who encouraged witnesses to come forward, described the suspect as “cold-hearted” and “depraved.”

“No more mass shootings. No more disrupting lives. No more creating heartbreak for people just trying to live their lives … it has to end,” she said.

Witnesses describe chaos, smoke

A train rider’s video shows smoke and people pouring out of a subway car. Wails erupt as passengers run for an exit as a few others limp off the train. One falls to the platform, and a person hollers, “Someone call 911!” In other video and photos from the scene, people tend to bloodied passengers lying on the platform, some amid what appear to be small puddles of blood, and another person is on the floor of a subway car.

“My subway door opened into calamity. It was smoke and blood and people screaming,” eyewitness Sam Carcamo told radio station 1010 WINS, saying he saw a gigantic billow of smoke pouring out of the train once the door opened.

Danny Mastrogiorgio of Brooklyn had just dropped off his son at school when he saw a crush of passengers, including multiple wounded, running up the subway stairway at the 25th Street station in panic. At least two had visible leg injuries, he said.

“It was insane,” he told The Associated Press. “No one knew exactly what was going on.”

Police officers were canvassing Fourth Avenue, the station’s cross-street, asking witnesses whether they were on the train. A sea of emergency lights was visible from at least a dozen blocks away, where a police cordon was set up.

Officials said that the gunman who fled was wearing a construction vest and a gas mask.

Some of those not shot but injured may have suffered smoke inhalation, officials said, as it was believed the suspect threw a gas cannister before opening fire in the incident, which occurred at about 8:25 a.m.

Recent attacks on subway system

U.S. President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland were briefed on the incident, as was New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who is isolating following a positive COVID-19 test on Sunday.

The incident happened on a subway line that runs through south Brooklyn in a neighbourhood — predominantly home to Hispanic and Asian communities — about a 15-minute train ride to Manhattan. Local schools, including Sunset Park High School across the street, were locked down.

Some shuttle buses were put into service as a result of subway disruptions.

Janno Lieber, chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, praised New Yorkers in the vicinity of the attack for “stepping up” to help out injured and shaken passengers.

The New York City subway system has seen a spate of recent attacks. An Asian-American woman was pushed to her death in front of a train at the Times Square subway station in January, while a Staten Island man died last week after a stabbing at Wall Street station.

“I’m committing the full resources of our state to fight this surge of crime, this insanity that is seizing our city because we want to get back to normal,” Hochul said.

“This is what the mayor and I are going to continue to work for.”

Following a 2017 incident that caused panic at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan, a U.S. permanent resident from Bangladesh was sentenced on federal charges last year to life in prison. The man detonated an improvised explosive device, leading to non-life-threatening injuries for several people nearby.