Photo: Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock
Hours after ashooting on a New York City subway trainTuesday morning left 16 people injured, the suspect remains on the loose.
According to New York Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, at 8:24 a.m., the suspect put on a gas mask before pulling out a smoke canister from his backpack and throwing it on the ground, causing the car of the Manhattan-bound N train to fill with smoke. Then, he opened fire.
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The suspect is described as a Black man, standing about 5 feet 5 inches tall, with a heavyset build. He was wearing a green “construction-type” vest and a gray hooded sweatshirt at the time of the shooting, said Sewell at a Tuesday press conference.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams told CNN at about 1 p.m. that police had not yet identified the suspect, adding that there was a “malfunction with the camera system at that particular station” that prevented the scene from being captured on video.
NYPD sources tell PEOPLE that police were searching the tunnels of the subway system for the suspect.
Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock
At Tuesday’s press conference, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said, “This person is still on the loose. This person is dangerous.”
The suspect’s motive is unknown. The shooting is not being investigated as an act of terrorism at the moment, Sewell said, but the investigation remains ongoing.
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Eyewitnesses have described the horror of the shooting. Yav Montano, who was in the train car,told CNNthere were about 40 to 50 people on the car at the time of the shooting. When the shooting began, the train was paused before pulling into the station, which means the passengers were essentially trapped in the train for those harrowing moments.
“There was a lot of blood trailing on the floor.… All I saw was people trampling each other, trampling over each other, trying to get into the door which was locked and just a lot of panic, but thankfully, the train moved quickly to the next stop and everyone filed off the train in a rush,” he told the network.
source: people.com
