Brooklyn subway shooting: Gunman Frank James is ARRESTED and held in NYPD custody

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell have been skewered for trying to take credit for the arrest of subway shooting suspect Frank James on Wednesday when it was a 21-year-old security worker who spotted him and alerted police after James himself called police, saying: ‘I heard you were looking for me.’ 

James was taken into custody on Wednesday on 1st Avenue between 7th and 8th Streets after a by-stander recognized him and called police.  His arrest on Wednesday brings an end to an embarrassing and fruitless day-long manhunt by the FBI and NYPD. 

He was marched out of the 9th Precinct shortly before 5pm, smirking but saying nothing as reporters asked why he carried out the attack. 

After allegedly shooting 33 shots on the northbound N train at 8.24am from his 9mm handgun, James ran across the platform with other terrified commuters and got onto a northbound R train. He got off that R train at 25th Street in Brooklyn. 

On Wednesday morning, he got on the F train again at 9.15am in Park Slope and traveled into Manhattan, right under the noses of the doubled number of cops on trains.  

It wasn’t until Zach Tahhan, a 21-year-old from New Jersey who was fixing a store security camera in the East Village, spotted James on First Avenue that he was arrested.  

At a press conference on Wednesday, Mayor Adams – who is in quarantine with COVID – said in a video message: ‘We got him!’ 

The New York Post cites sources who say James also called 911 himself, telling them where he would be, and saying: ‘You know, I think you’re looking for me. I’m seeing my picture all over the news and I’ll be around this McDonald’s,’” d you were looking for me. I’ll be around this McDonald’s.’ 

By the time police got there, he had left. He was then arrested down the street.  

Commissioner Keechant Sewell also thanked the NYPD detectives and claimed they gave James ‘nowhere to hide’ by ‘shrinking his world.’ 

But both were eviscerated by New Yorkers. James was able to evade cops even on the subway this morning, riding from Park Slope into Manhattan at 9.15am.    

Now that he is in custody, attention will turn to why it took the police so long to find him in a city that is covered in surveillance cameras, and why it took a member of the public to finally bring him down. 

James has a long rap sheet with charges in New York and New Jersey dating back to the 1990s for possessing burglary tools, criminal sex acts, criminal tampering, trespassing, larceny and disorderly conduct. 

At a press conference on Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams said: ‘My fellow New Yorkers. We got him. I want to thank every day New Yorkers who called in tips, responded, helped wounded passengers.  Thirty-three shots but less than 30 hours later we’re able to say, we got him.’ 

Tahhan, a security worker from Brooklyn who works in the East Village, spotted him and alerted police. 

‘Everyone thought I was crazy!’ he told DailyMail.com on Wednesday, describing how he jumped up and down and screamed for police to arrest him before he ‘killed’ anyone.  

Another witness, Deira Figueroa, said Zach chased after the gunman and grabbed him.

She was riding her bike when it all kicked off and only realized what was happening when she heard shouting. She said it was a team effort, but the man was mentally ill, a very weird, strange man.

She said he tried to run away but Zach ran after him and caught him.

She said the tackle was incredible. ‘In New York City, we protect us, nobodies really safe out here. It was like a tackle. The cops took a while to get here, maybe a few minutes.’ 

The cameras inside the 36th Street station were not working yesterday when he opened fire on the northbound N train at 8.24am. 

It meant he managed to escape as wounded passengers spilled out onto the platform covered in blood.  

James, 62, had posted ranting videos on YouTube about violence, race, Eric Adams and crime in New York City. 

He left Wisconsin, where he lived alone, on March 20 in a rented van, driving through Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania and then to New Jersey. 

He is understood to have rented a U-Haul in Philadelphia sometime earlier this week and driven it to Brooklyn, dumping it on the Kings Highway, five miles from the 36th Street station. 

He then was filmed getting on the subway at Kings Highway, shortly after 6am. 

It’s unclear what he did for the next two-and-a-half hours before unleashing a smoke bomb and firing his handgun on the train.

In a fumbling appearance on FOX on Wednesday morning, Mayor Eric Adams couldn’t explain why the cameras inside the 36th Street subway station – where the attack took place – were not working at the time of the attack. 

‘Our goal is to find out if other stations are having problems with cameras,’ he said, deferring to the MTA and saying he was in ‘communications’ with them, then coughing and sipping water from a wine glass in a reminder that he just tested positive for COVID. 

The attack yesterday is the pinnacle of a worsening crime problem that has terrified New Yorkers for the last two years. 

Violent crime on the subway has increased by more than 60 percent since this time last year, despite Mayor Adams’ promise to put more cops on trains and in stations. 

Still, no one knows how James was able to escape after shooting ten people on the northbound N train. 

For weeks before the attack, he had been posting unhinged and worrying videos on YouTube about race, and how he would never return to Wisconsin – where he lived – alive.  

It has now emerged that he was known to the FBI and was questioned in 2019 in New Mexico though it is not yet  clear why. 

He was cleared but was entered into the state’s ‘Guardian Lead’ system. 

The Guardian Program is the bureau’s terrorist threat and suspicious incident tracking system. 

Despite being on that list, James was unimpeded as he relentlessly uploaded hate-speech-filled clips on YouTube about how oppressed black people were and how black and white people should have ‘no contact’, for weeks before Tuesday’s attack. 

He also posted worrying memes about guns, bullets and 9/11 on Facebook but none were picked up by police. 

In the March 20th video, titled ‘STOP ONE COMPLETE’, he gave an ominous warning about his plans. Speaking from the driver’s seat of a rented van, he said: ‘As I leave the state of Wisconsin, about to be back in the state of Illinois, all I can say is: Good riddance. I will never be back again alive to that m*********r.’ 

At the start of the video, he told of his plans to drive to Philadelphia. 

‘I am on my way to Philadelphia. I packed my bags. I got up, even though it’s rainy, go to my storage unit, loaded that up and then finished my apartment off this morning.

‘I am on my way to Philadelphia. I should be there… I’m going to take my time though. 

‘This is the first leg of my trip, it’s been a long time since I’ve had to drive this far. We’re going to find out though. 

‘All my Instacart driving paid off or what. We are definitely going to find the f*** out.’ 

Two days before the shooting, he posted another video where he said black people were forced into violence by racism. 

‘This is what white b*****s and white m*********ers’ expect you to be… when you blow one of their f*****g brains out – this is what you asked for. This is how you wanted me to be, obviously,’ he said. 

He was drinking white rum and had finished the bottle. 

At the end of his final video, he said: ‘Why should a n****r be on this planet besides to pick tobacco or sugar plant. There is no natural reason for there to be such a thing as an American negro, African American, there is no reason for it. Except for you to be a slave. That is your rightful place, it always will be. Until you build a black state of Israel, which you don’t want. You want to send your a** in the ghetto and play n****r.

‘This is what this s**t in Ukraine is a build up to. It’s to get rid of your a**. Nuclear devices are going to be dropped. The president of Ukraine is calling for nuclear war. And so, I talk about my condition but, what the f*** can you do? 

‘That’s life in the ghetto. I’ve said everything in this video that I wanted to say. I’m going to finish this 100 proof. I’m going to finish this s**t. This has got me knocked the f*** out. I can barely talk. Leave the rest of that s**t for tomorrow. I’m going to take my a** to bed. I’ll talk to you guys later, take it easy. Be good.’ 

In another video, he ranted: ‘This nation was born in violence, it’s kept alive by violence or the threat thereof and it’s going to die a violent death. 

‘There’s nothing going to stop that,’ James said in a ranting video on YouTube under the name ‘Prophet of Truth88’. 

The rambling, profanity-filled YouTube videos posted by James, who is black, are replete with violent language and bigoted comments, sometimes against other black people. 

He is also featured sharing conspiracy theories – such as claiming that the Twin Towers could never have been brought down on 9/11 by planes.

One video, posted April 11, criticizes crime against black people and says drastic action is needed.

 ‘You got kids going in here now taking machine guns and mowing down innocent people,’ James says. 

‘It’s not going to get better until we make it better,’ he said, adding that he thought things would only change if certain people were ‘stomped, kicked and tortured’ out of their ‘comfort zone.’

‘I am now in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at the Comfort Inn Suites for the night. 

‘My next leg will be… I am taking my time. I am definitely going to get to Philly by Tuesday.