Brooklyn shooting update: Frank James ordered to be held behind bars in first federal court appearance

The Brooklyn shooter said “oops” after launching a smoke bomb and moments before opening fire, according to a witness.

“We have witnesses on the train who said he was sitting in the back corner of the second car and he popped the smoke grenade,” NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said during Wednesday’s press conference.

“And we have one witness who says ‘what did you do?’ He goes ‘oops’ and he pops the tube, brandishes the firearm and fires 33 times.”

Mr Essig’s comments supported the account given by one survivor who has spoken out about his encounter with the gunman.

“I looked at him, and I thought to myself he was talking to himself for like a while, so I looked at him, and I was like, this guy must be on drugs,” said Fitim Gjeloshi.

“When [the train] was about to hit 36th Street, we stopped for 5 minutes. He takes out a gas mask from one of his little luggage.

“He opened one of his gas tanks and he said ‘Oops, my bad.’ He pulls out an ax, he drops it, he takes a gun out, he starts shooting.”

Governor Kathy Hochul has vowed to restore “safety” to the streets of New York as she said the “epidemic of gun violence that terrorizes communities must end”.

“Like all New Yorkers, I am deeply grateful that the suspect in yesterday’s subway shooting has been apprehended. I am grateful to law enforcement and every first responder whose heroic efforts helped New York City respond to this horrific incident,” she tweeted following the arrest of the only suspect in the case Frank James.

“The epidemic of gun violence that terrorizes communities must end.

“My pledge to New Yorkers is this: I will fight every day to restore safety, get guns off our streets, & prevent these horrific acts.”

Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso reacted to the news that the 36th Street station’s surveillance cameras failed to capture footage of Tuesday’s shooting in an interview with ABC News this morning.

“The fact that these cameras are not working is a large concern,” Mr Reynoso said.

“There’s a lot of work to do in the city now to check every camera, make sure they’re all working, and also a deeper dive into what happened and what we can do in the future to ensure this doesn’t happen.”

He added that he does not think putting more police officers in subway stations would help prevent future violence.

“I think there are root causes to this violence that exists, mostly mental health at this point, is what we’re seeing in New York City. And that’s where we should be spending resources and energy,” he said.

“More cops to respond to a crime won’t necessarily stop the crime. In this case, this individual was inside a train car - unless you believe that you can put a police officer in every single train car in New York City, which is physically impossible ... that’s not the way we’re going to solve that issue.”

In a series of recent YouTube videos, Frank James documented his journey from packing up his apartment in Milwaukee to hiring a U-Haul van in Philadelphia to heading to New York, where he is accused of carrying out Tuesday’s attack.

He spoke of how the prospect of returning to the “danger zone” of Philadelphia had triggered negative thoughts, and that he had suffered from “post-traumatic stress”.

Mr James said in a clip uploaded on 23 February titled “negrotude” that his tax refund had been more than he was expecting, and he was using the several thousand dollars to fund his upcoming trip.

He’d been getting the “shakes” after trying to give up drinking, he said.

On 21 March, Mr James posted a clip apparently from Fort Wayne, Indiana. “Doomsday is actually about to be here,” he says in the clip.

Four days later, Mr James was seen driving through Philadelphia. Days later, he says he’s checked into a Best Western in Bordentown, New Jersey.

“Here I am, back, back, back in the place where all my troubles started,” he says.

“The state of f***ing stinking New Jersey, sitting here in Bordentown the next couple of days. And as you saw, the end of my journey, or part of the end of my journey, in Philadelphia, at my storage facility, getting everything put away.”

Mr James says he is only staying in New Jersey for a couple of days.

“Damage is just too deep. Damage is just way too f***ing deep. And so I think the second phase of what took place on 9/11 is about to take place. And that’s why Putin’s over here sabre-rattling.”

In one recent chilling video, Mr James says that he’s “made up his mind” that he “may have to hurt somebody”.

“Because there’s no way that I’m going to do what society asks me to do, which is to try to be—to work hard to play fair, keep my nose to the old grindstone, pull myself by the bootstraps, you know, go to work, pay my taxes, do everything you asked me to do, and then you’re going to smack me in the face.”

A Syrian man, 21, who helped NYPD police catch the person of interest in the Brooklyn subway shooting, is being hailed as a hero with #Thankyouzack trending on Twitter after he followed the suspected shooter and alerted the officers.

Zach Tahhan, who works as a security camera technician, was fixing the security system for a shop near St Marks Place and First Avenue in Manhattan’s East Village when he spotted a man walking on the street matching to the photos of James.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is the guy, we need to get him.’ He was walking down the street, I see the car of the police, I said, ‘Yo, this is the guy!’,” he told reporters.

He said he ran onto the street and followed the suspect while warning everyone around him to keep their distance.

“People think I am crazy, like maybe I am on drugs. But I’m not. I’m fasting,” he said, referring to his Ramadan fast.

Prior to Mr Tahhan spotting him, Mr Jams himself gave a tip to police by calling in and saying he was in McDonald’s. But he left before the police arrived.

It is not yet confirmed if it was Mr Tahhan’s actions that led to his arrest. But he was cheered and clapped by onlookers as he was taken in the police car for the investigation.

An eyewitness, Lee Lloyd, who was working inside his bar at the St Marks Place in East Village, said Frank R James “went without a struggle” when he was put in a police car.

He said “everybody’s on edge because of what happened yesterday, obviously”, according to the New York Times. “When we saw five cop cars come through, I was like, ‘Oh, man, what now?’”

Several police cars were driving around McDonald’s after Mr James himself called the police and said he was there, before he left the place.

Another eyewitness, Aleksei Korobow, a software worker, said everyone who witnessed the arrest was in shock.

“He was just casually walking here,” Mr Korobow said.

Speaking remotely at a press conference after testing positive for Covid, New York mayor Eric Adams said New Yorkers will not be betrayed anymore and he is committed in doing so, as he delivered a passionate speech announcing the suspect’s arrest.

“The failures of those with mental health, homelessness, the failure of our educational system did not start January 2022,” Mr Adams said. “We have abandoned and betrayed New Yorkers for years. That betrayal is going to stop, and I’m committed to doing so.”

He indicated that most crimes receive less attention because the victims were Black.

“Here’s my question that I put out to the city — I thought Black Lives Matter. Where are all those who stated Black Lives Matter?” Mr Adams said.

“If Black Lives Matter, then the thousands of people I saw on the street when Floyd was murdered should be on the street right now stating that the lives of these Black children that are dying every night matters. We can’t be hypocrites,” he added.

Even after the arrest of Frank James on Wednesday, police were searching for a motive from a flood of details about the 62-year-old Black man’s life.

The alleged shooter posted dozens of videos ranting about race, violence and his struggles with mental illness. Among all, one stands out for its relative calm: A silent shot of a packed New York City subway car in which he raises his finger to point out passengers, one by one.

His videos point at a deep, simmering anger in him with hours of rambling, bigoted, profanity-laced videos on his YouTube channel.

“This nation was born in violence, it’s kept alive by violence or the threat thereof, and it’s going to die a violent death,” said Mr James in a video where he takes on the moniker “Prophet of Doom.”

Police said their top priority was getting the suspect, now charged with a federal terrorism offense, off the streets as they investigate their biggest unanswered question: Why?

His YouTube videos are likely to play as a prime trove of evidence in the investigation. A federal criminal complaint cited one in which James ranted about too many homeless people on the subway and put the blame on New York City’s mayor. “What are you doing, brother?” he said in the video posted March 27. “Every car I went to was loaded with homeless people. It was so bad, I couldn’t even stand.”

Following the arrest of the suspect, Joe Biden expressed gratitude to everyone for their efforts leading up to the arrest of Frank James. He said, “we are keeping all those impacted in our prayers and staying in close touch with city officials”.

Zach Tahhan, a Syrian man who lives in the US, spotted the suspect shooter of the Brooklyn subway shooting at the shop near St Marks Place and First Avenue in Manhattan’s East Village.

The man has gone viral for his enthusiastic and charismatic personality as he narrated the incident leading up to the suspect’s arrest.

A TV station journalist said that Mr Tahhan grabbed their unit’s mic and began interviewing other witnesses.