A man was shot multiple times and critically injured on a New York City subway train Thursday as it arrived at a busy station in downtown Brooklyn, sending evening rush hour passengers into panic.
The shooting came a week after Gov. Kathy Hochul sent the National Guard into the subway system to help police find weapons High-profile crimes in city trains.
Authorities said Thursday’s shooting involved two men, whom police have not identified, who got into a confrontation and then a physical altercation aboard the moving train shortly before 4:45 p.m
One of the men, who police said was 36 years old, pulled out a gun and brandished it. The other man, 32, took possession of the gun and shot the person he was arguing with, Michael said Kemperthe head of the police transit department.
“The 32-year-old fired several shots, hitting the 36-year-old,” Kemper said at a press conference.
Witnesses told police the man who was shot was “aggressive and provocative” toward the other before the fight broke out, Kemper said.
The shooting occurred at a stop where the NYPD has a small office, and officers were on the platform and quickly took the suspect into custody.
Video posted on social media A photo taken by an ABC News journalist who was on board the train at the time of the incident showed passengers squatting on the floor while officers could be heard screaming on the platform.
“The real victims are the people I saw in these videos who had a harrowing time because they were on a train with someone with a gun,” Janno Lieber, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said at a news conference.
Lieber said it was “outrageous” that someone took a gun onto a train and started a fight. He said it shows the importance of the city and state’s current efforts to get guns off the streets.
Hochul deployed 750 National Guard members last week to assist city police with bag checks at entrances to busy train stations. The Democrat acknowledged that drafting uniformed military personnel is as much about sending a public message as it is about making mass transit safer.
Violence in the subway system is rare, with serious crimes falling nearly 3% from 2022 to 2023 and murders falling from 10 to five over the same period, police said.
But serious incidents have caused a stir, such as that involving a passenger Slashing a subway conductor in the neck last month.