(CNN) — Four survivors were still hospitalized Thursday, two days after a mass shooting on a subway train left New Yorkers badly shaken and forced a reckoning over passenger security on the largest public transportation system in the country.
Mayor Eric Adams is due to hold a virtual news conference Friday to thank frontline workers for their handling of the shooting and its aftermath.
In court Thursday, Frank James, 62, was denied bail and did not enter a plea on charges of violating a law that prohibits terrorism and violent attacks on mass transportation. He was arrested a day earlier in Manhattan’s East Village after calling in a tip to police; hours earlier, a teenager had called Crime Stoppers to report seeing him.
Police say James boarded a train during Tuesday morning’s rush in Brooklyn, set off smoke grenades and fired a gun 33 times, shooting 10 people.
Twenty-nine people were sent to hospitals, including the 10 who were shot and 19 others who suffered injuries mostly related to smoke inhalation, falling down or having a panic attack, officials said. The four people still hospitalized Thursday were in stable condition, according to hospital representatives.
While officials have not released a motive for one of the most violent attacks to occur on the city’s subway system, they have pointed to YouTube videos in which James shares his views on violence, mass shootings and mental health.
James, who’s Black, says in the videos that he suffered from post-traumatic stress and supported hatred of African Americans and other people he believed had maligned him. In a video posted in February, he criticizes a plan by Adams’ administration to address safety and homelessness in the subway, saying it was “doomed to fail.”
City officials want to enhance security in the subway system, the mayor told CNN on Wednesday, noting the process would entail examining technology that could detect whether somebody is carrying a gun.
“But it is extremely challenging to identify every person that enters the subway system because of the vastness of our system,” he said.
On the day of the shooting, more than 3 million people rode the system, which also includes passengers who used the Staten Island Railway, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
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Prosecutors: Attack was ‘carefully planned’
At James’ hearing Thursday, Assistant US Attorney Sara Winik described the attack as “premeditated and carefully planned.”
Prosecutors also argued James was a flight risk and a danger to the community, according to a letter submitted by US Attorney Breon Peace to a federal judge.
“The defendant committed a premediated mass shooting on the New York City subway system and then fled the scene, with a stockpile of ammunition and other dangerous items stowed in his storage unit,” the letter says.
Defense attorney Mia Eisner-Grynberg cautioned against a rush to judgment.
“We are all still learning about what happened on that train,” she said outside the courthouse. “What we do know is this: Yesterday, Mr. James saw his photograph on the news. He called Crime Stoppers to help. He told them where he was. Initial press and police reports in cases like this one are often inaccurate. Mr. James is entitled to a fair trial, and we will ensure that he receives one.”
The shooting James is accused of carrying out took place as a train was traveling from the 59th Street station to 36th Street station in Brooklyn just before 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
The suspected shooter was wearing a yellow hard hat, an orange reflective jacket and a surgical mask as he set off at least one smoke device and began shooting at people with a Glock pistol, according to a criminal complaint. Witnesses saw the suspect wearing a gas mask, the complaint stated.
Passengers tried to escape the smoke engulfing the train by running to one end of the car.
The doors wouldn’t open until two minutes later, when the train reached the 36th Street station, and passengers fled the train as the smoke followed them, video shows.
Other victims with bloody wounds fell to the platform as they shouted for medical care. Blood streaked the subway platform, with people sitting and lying on the platform, photos taken at the scene show.
The evidence connecting the suspect to the shooting
James was initially named a person of interest after authorities determined he rented a U-Haul van whose keys were found at the scene. Investigators declared him a suspect Wednesday morning after they learned he bought a gun that was left at the scene.
Authorities found a bag containing the Glock handgun, a plastic container with gasoline, a torch, the U-Haul key and multiple bank cards, as well as another bag containing fireworks, the complaint states.
James bought the gun in Ohio in 2011, the bank cards had James’ name on them and the U-Haul key was connected to a van James had rented in Philadelphia, according to the complaint.
A neon construction jacket left on the subway platform had a receipt for a storage unit in Philadelphia registered to James, the complaint states.
Federal prosecutors believe he went to the storage facility filled with ammunition and weapons the evening before the attack, according to court documents. A search of the unit revealed additional ammunition and “a threaded 9mm pistol barrel that allows for a silencer or suppressor to be attached.”
Hours before James was arrested, Jack Griffin, 17, said he was on a field trip with his high school photography class when he spotted the suspect sitting on a bench on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Griffin submitted the tip to NYPD’s Crime Stoppers around 10:30 a.m. And although James wasn’t captured for several more hours, the NYPD later told him the tip helped narrow their net of his whereabouts, he said.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “I was looking for things to shoot (with a camera), and I found probably one of the most wanted people.”
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