The man arrested in connection with Tuesday’s rush-hour subway shooting in Brooklyn faces a federal terrorism charge that could send him to prison for life.
Frank James, 62, intended “to cause death and serious bodily injury to one or more persons” during a brazen attack on the New York City subway, Brooklyn U.S. Attorney
The federal statute cited by Peace prohibits terrorist and other violent attacks on mass transportation systems. If convicted, James could face as long as life in prison, the prosecutor said.
James was
New details about James’s actions before and after the assault emerged in the 10-page criminal complaint filed against him, including that he had carried not one but two bags onto the Manhattan-bound N train. Authorities recovered both.
One bag contained a Glock semiautomatic, a plastic container of gasoline, a torch, a key to a U-Haul vehicle and multiple bank cards, the U.S. said. Insider the other bag were fireworks filled with black-powder explosives, according to the complaint prepared by an FBI agent.
James allegedly set off two smoke grenades on the moving train and then fired the Glock at least 33 times, wounding 10 people with gunshots and injuring at least 13 others, police said.
The Glock, which James lawfully purchased in Ohio, had marks indicating someone attempted to deface its serial number, according to the complaint. U-Haul records show that a person named Frank James rented a white van on April 11 in Philadelphia. Authorities said they were able to match the keys found in James’s bag to the van and determine that he drove from Pennsylvania through New Jersey to New York.
New York Police Department surveillance video recorded the U-Haul crossing the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge shortly after 4 a.m. Tuesday. Other camera footage captured an individual leaving the U-Haul van wearing a yellow hard hat, orange reflective vest and backpack and traveling on foot at about about 6:12 a.m., according to the FBI agent.
Just after the attack, at 8:40 a.m., a man who matched James’s description was recorded by a surveillance camera walking up stairs and exiting the subway station at 25th Street, the FBI agent wrote.
NYPD said that after James exited the subway in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, he was last seen, again on camera footage, at a subway entrance about a mile away in Park Slope.
A search of a storage unit registered to James turned up 9-millimeter ammunition, a threaded pistol barrel that allowed a silencer to be attached, targets and .223 caliber ammunition used for an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, according to the complaint.
During a search of a Philadelphia apartment that James rented last month, authorities found an empty magazine for a Glock handgun, a taser, a high-capacity rifle magazine and a blue smoke canister.
In a YouTube post, James complained about the number of homeless people on the city’s subway system. “I should have gotten a gun, and just started shooting,” he said.
Mia Eisner-Grynberg, a lawyer with the Federal Defender’s office who represents James, didn’t respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.
(Updates with details about James from criminal complaint. An earlier version of story corrected spelling of suspect’s name.)
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Anthony Lin, Peter Blumberg
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