The cycle of violence continues in New York. Tuesday, April 12, twenty-three people were injured, including ten by gunfire, in southern Brooklyn. The shooting took place in the Sunset Park district shortly before 8:30 a.m. local time (2:30 p.m. in Paris) in a crowded subway at the 36th Street station, a hub where three lines intersect. If five people were in critical condition, their lives were not in danger.
“We were really lucky that it wasn’t much more serious”, however, underlined, at the end of the day, the chief of the police of New York, Keechant Sewell. A miracle when you know that the shooter, who was still at large on Tuesday evening, pulled the trigger thirty-three times.
Earlier in the day, authorities said that as the train pulled into the station, the suspect put on a gas mask, opened a canister which filled the car with smoke and began to fire . Amateur videos and photos posted on social media showed pools of blood and people lying on the ground.
“I just focused on trying to get out as safely as I could.” CNN talks to passenger Yav Montano who was in the train… https://t.co/1Encjw3WRw
Keechant Sewell ruled out, at this stage, a terrorist act. The shooter, described by police as ” a black man “wearing a construction jacket and a gray hoodie, was still wanted by law enforcement on Tuesday evening.
At the scene, investigators found a handgun and three magazines. A car key also led them to an abandoned pickup truck in Brooklyn. The police gave the description of the individual who had rented this vehicle in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), without saying if it was the suspect.
Crime is on the rise in New York
In the morning, the Democratic Governor of New York State, Kathy Hochul, could not contain her anger. “We’re tired of reading the headlines about crime, whether it’s shootings or the loss of a teenage girl or 13-year-old. This must stop”, she hammered. An allusion to several victims who have recently died during previous shootings or who have been hit by stray bullets.
Since the start of the pandemic, crime has risen sharply in New York, very hard hit by Covid-19. If we are still far from the dark years of the 1990s, when violence reached peaks, the situation has deteriorated in recent months. In 2021, the New York police counted 488 homicides in the megalopolis of nearly 9 million inhabitants, a slight increase after a jump in 2020 (468 homicides against 319 in 2019).
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