By JIM MUSTIAN, JENNIFER PELTZ, MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHAEL BALSAMO, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A gunman in a gasoline masks and development vest set off a smoke grenade and fired a barrage of bullets in a rush-hour subway prepare, capturing at the very least 10 folks Tuesday, authorities mentioned. Police had been attempting to trace down the renter of a van probably related to the violence.

Police Chief of Detectives James Essig mentioned investigators weren’t positive whether or not the person, recognized as Frank R. James, 62, had any link to the subway assault.

Authorities additionally had been trying into social media posts by somebody with the identical identify that talked about homelessness, New York and Mayor Eric Adams, main officers to tighten the mayor’s safety element, Essig and Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell mentioned. She mentioned the posts had been “regarding.”

The assault made the subway a scene of horror: a smoke-filled automobile with at the very least 33 rounds of gunfire going off, police mentioned. Frightened commuters ran from the prepare and others limped out of it. At least one rider collapsed on the platform.

“My subway door opened into calamity. It was smoke and blood and folks screaming,” eyewitness Sam Carcamo instructed radio station 1010 WINS. The gunfire erupted on a prepare that pulled right into a station in the Sunset Park neighborhood, about a 15-minute experience from Manhattan and predominantly dwelling to Hispanic and Asian communities.

Five folks had been in important situation however anticipated to outlive. At least 29 in all had been handled at hospitals for gunshot wounds, smoke inhalation and different situations, in response to hospitals.

Sewell mentioned the assault was not being investigated as terrorism, however that she was “not ruling out something.” The shooter’s motive was unknown.

Authorities discovered a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun on the scene, together with prolonged magazines, a hatchet, detonated and undetonated smoke grenades, a black rubbish can, a rolling cart, gasoline and the important thing to a U-Haul van, Essig mentioned.

He mentioned the important thing led investigators to the van renter, discovering that he has addresses in Philadelphia and Wisconsin.

The officers mentioned authorities zeroed in on an individual of curiosity after the bank card used to hire the van was discovered on the capturing scene.

The van was discovered, unoccupied, elsewhere in Brooklyn.

Investigators consider the weapon jammed, stopping the suspect from persevering with to fireside, the officers mentioned. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has accomplished an pressing hint to establish the gun’s producer, vendor and preliminary proprietor.

The assault unnerved a metropolis on guard about an increase in gun violence and the ever-present menace of terrorism. It left some New Yorkers jittery about driving the nation’s busiest subway system and prompted officers to extend policing at transportation hubs from Philadelphia to Connecticut.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority introduced final fall that it had put safety cameras in all 472 subway stations citywide, saying they’d put criminals on an “categorical monitor to justice.” But on the station the place the prepare arrived, the cameras apparently weren’t working.

MTA system chief Janno Lieber instructed TV interviewers he did not know why the cameras malfunctioned. But he mentioned police had “lots of completely different choices” from cameras elsewhere on the subway line to get a glimpse of the shooter.

One rider’s video, shot by a closed door between subway automobiles, reveals an individual in a hooded sweatshirt elevating an arm and pointing at one thing as 5 bangs sound. In one other video, smoke and folks pour out of a subway automobile, some limping.

“Someone name 911!” an individual shouts.

Other video and images from the scene present folks tending to bloodied passengers mendacity on the platform — some amid what look like small puddles of blood — and one other particular person on the ground of a subway automobile.

Rider Juliana Fonda, a broadcast engineer at WNYC-FM, instructed its news website Gothamist that passengers from the automobile behind hers started banging on the connecting door.

“There was lots of loud pops, and there was smoke in the opposite automobile,” she mentioned. “And folks had been attempting to get in and so they couldn’t, they had been pounding on the door to get into our automobile.”

As police looked for the shooter, Gov. Kathy Hochul warned New Yorkers to be vigilant.

“This particular person continues to be on the unfastened. This particular person is harmful,” the Democrat mentioned at a news convention simply after midday. “This is an energetic shooter scenario proper now in the town of New York.”

Fire and police officers had responded to stories of an explosion, however Sewell mentioned on the press convention that there have been no recognized explosive gadgets. Multiple smoke gadgets had been discovered on the scene, mayoral spokesperson Fabien Levy mentioned.

After folks streamed out of the prepare, quick-thinking transit employees ushered passengers to a different prepare throughout the platform for security, mentioned Lieber, the MTA chairman.

High faculty scholar John Butsikaris was driving the opposite prepare when he noticed a conductor urging everybody to get in. He thought it could be a secular drawback till the following cease, when he heard screams for medical consideration and his prepare was evacuated.

“I’m undoubtedly shook,” the 15-year-old instructed The Associated Press. “Even although I didn’t see what occurred, I’m nonetheless scared, as a result of it was like a number of ft away from me, what occurred.”

No transit employees had been bodily harm, in response to their union.

In Menlo, Iowa, President Joe Biden praised “the primary responders who jumped in motion, together with civilians, civilians, who didn’t hesitate to assist their fellow passengers and tried to defend them.”

Adams, who’s isolating following a optimistic COVID-19 check on Sunday, mentioned in a video assertion that the town “won’t permit New Yorkers to be terrorized, even by a single particular person.”

New York City has confronted a spate of shootings and high-profile bloodshed in latest months, together with on the town’s subways. One of probably the most stunning was in January, when a lady was pushed to her demise in entrance of a prepare by a stranger.

Adams, a Democrat just a little over 100 days into his time period, has made cracking down on crime — particularly on the subways — a spotlight of his early administration, pledging to ship extra law enforcement officials into stations and platforms for normal patrols. It wasn’t instantly clear whether or not officers had been already contained in the station when the shootings occurred.

Danny Mastrogiorgio of Brooklyn had simply dropped his son off in school when he noticed a crush of panicked passengers, some wounded, running up the stairway on the twenty fifth Street station. At least two had seen leg accidents, he mentioned.

“It was insane,” he instructed the AP. “No one knew precisely what was going on.”

Balsamo reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Karen Matthews, Julie Walker, Deepti Hajela, Michelle L. Price and David Porter in New York contributed to this report.

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