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

The gunman who shot 10 people in Tuesday’s subway attack is believed to have acted alone, according to Mayor Eric Adams.

The mayor, who is isolating at home after testing positive for Covid-19 on Sunday, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday morning that there is no reason to believe the shooter had any help.

“There’s no evidence… that there was an accomplice,” he said.

“It appears he was acting alone. We’re asking New Yorkers to be vigilant.”

The mayor’s own security was stepped up on Tuesday after videos emerged online of the suspect - Frank R James - ranting about Mr Adams.

The NYPD has shared new images of Brooklyn shooting suspect Frank Robert James and officially accused him of being the gunman who shot 10 people and left more than a dozen more injured in Tuesday’s horror attack.

“On 4/12/22 at 8:30 AM, Frank Robert James fired numerous gun shots inside an “N” line subway car at 36th St & 4th Ave subway station causing serious injuries to 10 people,” the NYPD said in a wanted

“Anyone with info about the incident or his whereabouts should contact @NYPDTips or call 1-800-577-TIPS.”

The 61-year-old has ties to New York City, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio, the NYPD added.

Two men have been stabbed inside a Manhattan subway station just hours after the Brooklyn mass shooting - despite New York officials vowing to send more police officers to improve safety in the city’s embattled transit hubs.

The two victims, aged 19 and 20, were attacked at around 1am on Wednesday morning as they waited on the southbound number 2 train platform at 135 Street subway station in Harlem, according to the NYPD.

The shocking incident comes less than 24 hours after 10 people were shot in a terrifying attack on a subway in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, during rush hour on Tuesday.

Following Tuesday’s shooting - and with the suspect Frank Robert James still on the run - New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that the number of police officers patrolling the city’s subway system were being doubled.

New York City’s subway system has been rocked by a spate of violent attacks in recent months.

In January, Michelle Alyssa Go was killed after being pushed in front of a subway train at Time Square station by a homeless man.

The Independent’s Rachel Sharp has the full story here:

Investigators have located video of Brooklyn shooting suspect Frank Robert James entering the subway system ahead of Tuesday morning’s attack, it has been revealed.

MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday morning that the NYPD has now found “three angles” of footage of that moment and that officers have been “combing through” video from hundreds of cameras.

“We have 600 cameras on that line just in Brooklyn, over 10,000 in the system - way up from where it was years ago,” he said.

“We have a lot of video.”

He added: “We have video now of three angles of this fellow who is now a person of interest entering the system obviously with a lot of material... so a lot of video, a lot of evidence of where he came in, of what he looks like, of what he was carrying.”

His comments come after it emerged that the camera system was down in 36 Street station at the time of Tuesday’s attack, hampering the investigation as police had no surveillance footage of the suspect at that station.

Investigators tracked down the U-Haul van allegedly rented by subway shooting suspect Frank Robert James following a tip-off from a Brooklyn man who said he learned about its significance on former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s radio show.

The U-Haul van was found in Gravesend, Brooklyn, at around 4:30pm - around eight hours after the morning shooting in Sunset Park.

The vehicle was parked in front of the Highlawn apartment building on West Third Street just off Kings Highway and around a five minutes’ walk from the Kings Highway subway station.

Police were searching for the van after finding a key to the vehicle inside a bag the gunman left behind at the scene of the shooting, along with a handgun, high capacity magazines, fireworks and gas canisters.

The New York Times reported that a man who lives in the Highlawn building called the police to report seeing the vehicle in the road.

He said that his superintendent had complained about the van blocking the driveway and stopping him from moving his car earlier that morning.

When the man then heard about the search for the van on Mr Giuliani’s show, he called the police.

This revelation raises yet further questions about the police response to Tuesday’s horror attack as the NYPD failed to publicly release information that they were searching for the van.

Law enforcement sources leaked the information to media outlets, leading to it being widely reported.

Had this not been the case, it is not clear how long it may have taken to track down the van.

Resilient New Yorkers returned to their morning commutes from 36 Street station, where there was a visibly ramped-up police presence on Wednesday morning.

Just 24 hours after the mass shooting and with the gunman still on the run, crowds were seen making their way into the subway station in Sunset Park and waiting on the platform to continue with their day-to-day routines.

NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell posted a video clip on Twitter on Wednesday morning showing her riding the city’s subway, one day on from the mass shooting at 36 Street station in Brooklyn.

“A morning subway ride on the “A” line with @NYPDFIRSTDEP Edward Caban, and @NYPDChiefOfDept Ken Corey heading to our recruit graduation to recognize the hard work of our newest Finest,” she tweeted.

“They’ll be in our neighborhoods and on the trains in just a few days.”

The tweet came not long after New York Governor Kathy Hochul also rode the subway on Wednesday morning as officials seek to reassure New Yorkers in the aftermath of Tuesday’s attack.

Double the number of police officers have been drafted in to patrol the city’s subway system while suspected gunman Frank Robert James remains on the run.

Surveillance footage has emerged that appears to show Brooklyn shooting suspect Frank Robert James on his way to carry out Tuesday’s attack on the city’s subway system.

The video, obtained by CBS2, shows a man dressed in an orange construction vest and yellow helmet walking down a street carrying a backpack in his right hand and wheeling a piece of luggage in his left.

Police said on Tuesday that the suspect was wearing a construction vest when he carried out the attack.

MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber was grilled by Gayle King on CBS Mornings on Wednesday over why the camera systems in the 36 Street subway station in Sunset Park were not working during Tuesday’s rush hour attack.

On Tuesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams admitted that there was a “malfunction” on the entire camera system in the station where a gunman shot 10 people and left many more wounded.

This hampered the investigation as there was no surveillance footage of the suspect at the scene of the crime.

As a result, it was many hours before a photo of suspected gunman Frank Robert James was finally released to the public.

Ms King questioned Mr Lieber about why the system was down.

“How do you explain on this particular train that the cameras were not working?” she asked, questioning if it was “a fluke”.

“I think in one location by the turnstile there was apparently a server problem, which they had been working on the day before,” he replied.

“But the bigger issue is there’s so much video evidence from all of the stations on this line that there are images of this fellow that are going to be found.”

The MTA boss insisted that there are “600 cameras on this one line in Brooklyn, 2,500 cameras the length of the line” and that there is a lot of video for investigators to comb through to track down the suspect.

“So the cops have been looking overnight at all of the stations - where he got on, where he might have gotten off. It’s an enormous range of video,” he said.

“It’s one of the things we’ve done to make the system safer. We went from 30 percent camera coverage of our 472 stations to 100 percent camera coverage.

“So we’ve got a lot of video for the cops to look at in that network.”

The MTA had received multiple warnings about faulty subway cameras years before the system failed to capture surveillance footage of the perpetrator of Tuesday’s mass shooting in Brooklyn.

State officials found in two separate inspections in 2018 and 2019 that the subway system’s cameras were at risk of malfunctions, according to CBS News.

The inspections also found that the MTA failed to carry out preventative maintenance and repairs on thousands of the system’s cameras in a timely manner.

Following the inspections, the MTA said that it was taking “aggressive” steps to rectify the issues, CBS reported.

However, on Tuesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams admitted that there was a “malfunction” on the entire camera system in the 36 Street subway station in Sunset Park where suspected gunman Frank Robert James shot 10 people and left around 19 more wounded.

The Independent’s Rachel Sharp has the full story: