At least 16 people were injured in a shooting that took place inside a New York City subway station during the morning rush hour.
Police said the shots were fired inside the 36th Street station in the Sunset Park area of Brooklyn, around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday local time.
A civil defense spokesman told AFP that “unexploded bombs” were found, but according to a police tweet, “there are currently no operable explosive devices at this time.”
New York City Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said 10 of the injured had gunshot wounds, while five others were in critical but stable condition and were receiving treatment at local hospitals.
Kavanagh added that injuries ranged from smoke inhalation to shrapnel wounds.
A spokeswoman for the New York Police Department confirmed to AFP earlier that “at 8.27 am, police received an urgent call from a person who was shot on the subway” in Brooklyn.
The Democratic Governor of New York State, Kathy Hochhol, said she is monitoring the situation and being updated on the investigation into the incident.
She added in a New York Police press conference following the incident that she would dedicate “the full resources of our state” to fighting crime in the city. “This madness that is taking over our city must stop,” she said.
Pictures from the scene show bloodied passengers on the station floor. Paramedics, who were the first to arrive at the scene, confirmed that there were 13 wounded.
Pictures spread on social media showed wounded people inside the smoke-filled station
The suspected armed attacker fled the station and is still at large. Police described the attacker as a black man, 5 feet 5 inches tall, with a heavy build, and who was wearing a gray sweater with a hood and an orange jacket like those worn by construction workers and wearing a gas mask on his face. . His motives are not yet known.
New York Police Commissioner Kishant Sewell said the incident in Brooklyn is not being investigated as an act of terrorism.
A spokesman for New York Mayor Eric Adams called on the city’s residents “to stay away from the area for their own safety and so that paramedics and police can help those in need and investigate the incident.”
It is reported that at least four trains were delayed in both directions.
Police sources said that the suspect opened fire from the platform of the train station and threw a smoke bomb into the train operating on the “R” line, which had just stopped at the station.
An eyewitness named Sam Caracamo said: “The door of the subway train I was on opened to the disaster. There was smoke and blood and people were screaming.” He added that a huge cloud of smoke poured from inside the train as soon as the doors opened.
Another eyewitness, given her first name as Claire, told the New York Post that she “might not count” the number of bullets fired.
The woman said she saw the suspect drop “a kind of cylinder that had a spark in its upper part.”
The New York Fire Department told the BBC it had initially been called regarding smoke in the subway station.
But officials arrived to find a number of people shot.
Paramedics rushed to the accident site to transport the injured
US President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland were briefed on the incident, which came just a day following Biden announced new measures to limit gun ownership and increase restrictions on so-called “invisible weapons”, the hard-to-trace weapons that It can be assembled at home.
It is noteworthy that American cities have witnessed, during the past two years, an alarming increase in incidents of violence using weapons.
In the first quarter of 2022 (January 1 to early April), the number of shootings in New York rose from 260 to 296 compared to the same period in 2021, according to New York Police figures released last week.
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