Five people will share the reward of $50,000 Promised by the Police to whoever helped catch the man who last Tuesday shot indiscriminately in a New York subway car, leaving ten passengers wounded by bullets.
Police said this Friday that those five people were the ones who provided “critical information” to help catch the alleged perpetrator of the shooting, after a long search of thirty hours in which the aggressor was missing.
The names of the five winners have not been communicated because in this type of citizen collaboration the anonymity of the informants is usually guaranteed.
However, several media have reported – and the Police have not denied it – that it was the author of the shooting himself, Frank James, a 62-year-old man already formally charged and in provisional prison without bail, who called the authorities to surrender.
James entered a MacDonalds and from there, with his own cell phone, he dialed the citizen collaboration number: “I think you’re looking for me. I’ve seen my picture all over the news and I’m going to walk near this MacDonalds”James said, according to ABC.
When the Police arrived, James had already left the restaurant, but an individual helped the agents locate him a few meters further, where he was finally detained without offering any resistance.
Among the people who claim to have given relevant information is a Syrian migrant named Zack Tahhan, who has been extensively interviewed by different television networks, as well as the Mexican Francisco Puebla, who runs a hardware and gardening store in the East Village.
Frank James was formally presented yesterday before the judgewho decreed prison without bail and, according to the federal prosecutor of Brooklyn, Breon Peace, risks a life sentence for committing a terrorist attack on a public means of transport.
James owned a YouTube account, called “Prophet of Truth 88”, In which, in addition to posting numerous racist and violent comments, he claimed to be a victim of psychiatric disorders and to have undergone “terrifying” treatment for his mental illness in public institutions.
However, his attack was not the work of a spontaneous unbalanced person, but was conscientiously prepared: he bought ammunition, rented a truck, got a vest in the style of construction workers – with the apparent purpose of misleading – and entered a subway car, where, equipped with a gas mask, he opened two canisters of smoke and then began to shoot blindly.
After that, he got out of the car and disappeared in New York for thirty hours while the entire city police and FBI agents searched for him without success.