The New York City Subway has become a national problem.
Top News Today
On Tuesday, 29 people were injured in a shooting on a New York City Subway. At around 8:30am, a man wearing a gas mask boarded a Manhattan-bound N train at the 36th Street station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, flooded the train with smoke bombs designed to disorient the passengers, then began shooting aimlessly through the smoke — with bullets striking anyone in its path.
Trapped several feet underground and locked inside a metal train with limited visibility and no viable exits, the subway passengers were instantly rendered helpless. When the train doors eventually opened, blood and bedlam were everywhere.
“It was the worst pain I ever felt in my life,” said Hourari Benkada, who was among the first victims shot by the gunman.
“All you see is smoke, black smoke going off and then people bum-rushing to the back, this pregnant woman was in front of me I was trying to help her, I didn’t know there were shots at first, I just thought it was a black smoke bomb. She said ‘I’m pregnant with a baby,’ I hugged her and then the bum rush continued and that’s when I got shot in the back of my knee,” Benkada concluded.
“I was a few cars down, and the conductor told everyone to get on the train,” a Brooklyn Tech student who was a passenger on the subway said. “I was just scared, and at the next stop, he told everyone to get off. Everyone evacuated, and I didn’t know what happened.”
Fortunately, the magazine of the shooter’s gun jammed, which possibly saved lives.
“Like 10 shots went off, I think the gun jammed, I think he like an extended clip or something cause I never heard that many shots come off a handgun,” Benkada said.
“I saw a lot of people coming out of the train station,” said a man who works in the area. “One of them was injured. I believe it was a lady that was getting shot in her leg, and a lot of people was coming up from side to side, screaming, asking for help.”
In graphic footage that has since made its way across national newsrooms, critically injured passengers were shown being dragged off the train and onto the platform as they waited for paramedics to arrive. Additionally, schools in the area went into immediate lockdown as police launched a manhunt.
Although the suspect appears to be a lone gunman, authorities spent much of Tuesday wondering what would have happened (and how many dead bodies they would have needed to recover) if this were an orchestrated terrorist attack inside multiple New York City Subway trains scattered throughout the city.
Local, state, and national leaders have since spoken about the shooting tragedy.
“We’re praying for all New Yorkers who were injured or affected by today’s attack. So far, we know that we have [a] multiple [number of] injuries, including victims of gunshot wounds…We will not allow New Yorkers to be terrorized even by a single individual. The NYPD is searching for the suspect at large, and we will find him,” NYC Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement.
“We say no more. No more mass shootings. No more disrupting lives. No more creating heartbreak for people just trying to live their lives as normal New Yorkers. It has to end and it ends now…Everyone involved in this has one purpose, and it is to stop the insanity of these crimes,” NY Gov. Kathy Hochul said.
“Jill and I — my wife Jill and I are praying for those who are injured and all those touched by that trauma, and we’re grateful for all the first responders who jumped into action, including civilians — civilians who didn’t hesitate to help their fellow passengers and try to shield them,” President Biden said.
“We’re going to continue to stay in close contact with New York authorities and as we learn more about the situation over the coming hours and days. We’re not letting up on it until we find out, and we find the perpetrator,” Mr. Biden added in remarks that confirmed the NYC Subway shooting as a national issue.
Pres. Biden on Brooklyn subway shooting: “Jill and I are praying for those that are injured and all those touched by that trauma. We’re grateful for all the first responders who jumped into action, including civilians.” https://t.co/TYLm3iVtEv pic.twitter.com/kegSsN4E1c
— ABC News (@ABC) April 12, 2022
Just as New York City has been successfully recovering from its loss of tourism during the COVID pandemic and just as international visitors have returned to the city to inject much-needed dollars into the economy, the NYC Subway has become a danger zone and has been making the news for all the wrong reasons.
In recent months, multiple victims have been pushed onto the paths of oncoming trains, killing them instantly. Several innocent bystanders have been unexpectedly stabbed and/or sliced with a razor blade while standing on a platform or riding on a train. If that wasn’t enough, hundreds of (unmasked, unkept, and unhygienic) homeless men and women have moved into subway cars, using longer seats as their bed for the night and shorter seats to store their personal belongings.
Fare evasions, fights, and other criminal acts have become the subway norm after certain hours.
New York City is the largest city in the nation and the New York City Subway system is the largest and oldest in the country. The recent uptick in crime and the potential criminal and terrorist acts to come in NYC deserve our time, our attention, and an immediate fix.
OK WASSUP! discusses the Top News Today:
New York City Subway shooting
highlights a huge NY crime problem.
Daily Beast: The man sought by the NYPD in Tuesday’s subway shooting recorded a video message to Mayor Eric Adams in which he said he had been through the city’s mental-health system and experienced a kind of emotional violence that would make someone “go and get a gun and shoot motherf-ckers.” Frank James, 62, who Adams on Wednesday morning identified as the suspect in the Brooklyn attack, recorded and uploaded dozens of lengthy diatribes on race, politics, and gun violence to a YouTube channel under the username prophetoftruth88, which had more than 300 subscribers. In the videos, James offers commentary on major news events from Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars to Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination to the war in Ukraine. In most of the videos, however, James seems to express his disdain for Black people—often calling them “cattle” and racial slurs—and talks about his desire… Read more »