A gunman who opened fire on a subway train and station platform in the Bronx on Monday, killing one man and wounding five others, is being sought after, according to New York City police.
According to New York Police Department (NYPD) officials, gunfire broke out on a northbound train while two groups of youths were fighting outside the station where the incident occurred. Then a pistol was drawn by someone from one of the groups.
Police added that although the initial shot was fired inside the train, the six passengers who were shot were struck by bullets while they were on the platform outside the train. Five people were rushed to hospitals with injuries that were not life-threatening, and a 34-year-old man passed away.
The victims ranged in age from 14 to 71 and included four males and two females.
“To the shooter – you are now the NYPD’s most wanted, and you have the greatest detectives in the world looking for you,” said Tarik Sheppard, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of public information. “We suggest you turn yourself in.”
Police and transit system officials at the press conference stressed the shooting was a rare act of the violence on the subway, working to ease fears passengers may have.
Data shows about 3.8 million trips are taken on the on New York’s subway system on an average weekday, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority reported 570 felony assaults in all of 2023.
Shootings are especially uncommon: in 2022, when a man with a handgun injured 10 people on a train passing through Brooklyn, it was the first mass shooting attack on the subway system since 1984.
A few weeks later, in May 2022, a man shot dead 48-year-old Daniel Enriquez on a Q train in what police said was an unprovoked attack.
Fears of how dangerous the subway really is among passengers jumped early in the pandemic, when the subway crime rate spiked in early 2020, but fell back to normal levels in 2021. Riders’ perceptions of the dangers remain high, even in the face of falling crime rates.
Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat and a former city police captain, has sought to reassure unnerved commuters by increasing the number of police officers in subway stations.
