Eyewitnesses described the horror of Tuesday morning’sshooting inside a New York City subwaycar in which 10 people were shot and 16 were injured.
The attack began during the morning rush hour at 8:24 a.m. when a suspect pulled out a smoke canister from his backpack and threw it on the ground before opening fire inside a Manhattan-bound N train, police say. The attack occurred while the train was waiting to enter the 36th Street Station in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn.
Before the attack, the suspect put on a gas mask, say police. When the shooting began, the train was paused before pulling into the station, which means the passengers were essentially trapped in the train for those harrowing moments.
Yav Montano, who was in the train car,told CNNthat after smoke filled the car, he heard “what I thought was fireworks” but was actually gunshots.
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“I honestly have no words for what I’ve experienced,” he told the network.
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“There was blood on the floor,” said Montano, who estimated there were about 40 to 50 people on the car at the time. “There was a lot of blood trailing on the floor.… All I saw was people trampling each other, trampling over each other, trying to get into the door which was locked and just a lot of panic, but thankfully, the train moved quickly to the next stop and everyone filed off the train in a rush.”
Sam Carcamo, who was waiting in the 36th Street station, told radio station 1010 WINS that after the train pulled into the station, “My subway door opened into calamity. It was smoke and blood and people screaming.”
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The suspect in the shooting is still at large. He was described as a Black man, standing about 5 feet 5 inches tall, with a heavyset build. He was wearing a green “construction-type” vest and a gray hooded sweatshirt at the time of the shooting, said New York Police Department Commissioner Keechant Sewell.
According to Sewell, none of the injuries is considered life-threatening. The shooting is not being investigated as an act of terrorism at the moment, Sewell said, but the investigation remains ongoing.
The victims who didn’t suffer gunshot wounds had injuries including smoke inhalation, shrapnel and panic from the incident, an FDNY spokesperson said at the press conference.
source: people.com
