( John Minchillo / AP Photo )
The Fire Department said that 13 people were injured after a shooting on a subway platform in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning. Stephen Nessen, WNYC transportation reporter, joins with the latest news.
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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Unfortunately, we have to start this morning with what we know so far about the shooting at the 36th Street and Fourth Avenue subway station in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Multiple people shot during the 8:00 AM hour, rush hour obviously. That's the 36th Street station where the D, the N, and the R trains routinely stop.
Also breaking in the last hour, the New York State Lieutenant Governor, Brian Benjamin, has been arrested, multiple reports say, on charges relating to an alleged illegal campaign finance scheme during his run for New York City Comptroller last year. We're scheduled to have Governor Hochul on the show tomorrow. We'll see if she still comes on. We're still getting details about the arrest of the Lieutenant Governor this morning, but of much more immediate and life and death importance is the rush hour shooting in the subways obviously. Our transportation reporter Stephen Nessen is on the scene. He biked over there, I'm told, and he joins us now. Stephen, can you hear me okay?
Stephen: Yes, I hear you. Hi, Brian.
Brian Lehrer: Listeners, you can help us report this story as well. Is anyone listening right now who was on the scene? What can you tell your fellow listeners about what you've just witnessed or been through, and are you okay? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Stephen, what's the latest you have about the victims first of all?
Stephen: Brian, we haven't gotten official information from DCPI yet about the number of victims, but I'm told from a representative of DCPI on the scene that they believe there were five people shot. It's not clear what their condition is at the moment. Like you said, it's at 36th Street subway station. I spoke with an eyewitness who said a shooting took place on the N train, or at least there were victims on the N train. This witness was actually at the 25th Street station because she told me her R train kept going, and in fact, two people who were shot were moved onto this train and taken away from the scene.
She showed me videos of this. It's really gripping. She said there were some doctors that were on this train who were attending to the people. A man had red blood on his chest and a woman, she said, had gotten shot on her shoulder. At least she had blood on her shoulder. Like we said, we don't know exactly if it was a shooting. We've heard reports it's a shooting, but also DCPI told me there's reports of a smoke condition in the subway station as well. That's the information we have.
Brian Lehrer: I saw it on TV, Stephen. A smoke condition that was recorded just after this reported shooting. That goes along with some reports which I'm also hearing may now be refuted, but maybe some listeners have heard along the way that there were undetonated explosive devices found. Now, according to one report that I heard elsewhere just before I came on, police are now questioning whether those are undetonated explosives or just things that people were dropping as they were fleeing the subway station. Nonetheless, there was smoke, which you wouldn't see from just gunfire. What can you-
Stephen: That's true.
Brian Lehrer: -tell us about any of that?
Stephen: Well, certainly, I've seen the photos. There was not a lot of smoke but there was definitely smoke. The woman I spoke with told me at 36th Street it was pandemonium. She said everybody thought a bomb went off, so people were running like crazy. Like you said, backpacks were left, shoes were flying everywhere, people lost their glasses, so it was really quite hectic. I will tell you the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces are on the scene. NYPD Counterterrorism is here. Certainly, they're, like you said, this seriously and investigating. There's bodegas around here and police are scouring videos from that, trying to glean any information from what they're seeing on those videos as well.
Brian Lehrer: Our newsroom is now reporting that the FDNY says 13 people have been injured. Now, to be clear that doesn't necessarily mean 13 people were shot. Some of those people could have been injured in the pandemonium to try to get out of the station, we don't know, but our newsroom back at the station is reporting from the FDNY 13 people injured. Stephen-
Stephen: That's right. I'm hearing the same thing.
Brian Lehrer: Is it known yet whether there was one perpetrator or more than one perpetrator, and whether that person or those people are still at large?
Stephen: I have not heard, Brian. We don't know.
Brian Lehrer: Is anybody using the "T" word, terrorism, from the official authorities? Again, I've been hearing people starting to say things, but I won't want to report that as news.
Stephen: Right. Representatives from the NYPD that are on the scene are not saying that yet. They did say there will be a briefing maybe in the next hour or so, so we will get hopefully slightly more information, but I haven't heard that from many official sources. Anytime there's a shooting in New York there's always a concern in the subway station. Of course, there's always a target. They plan for these kinds of things. They think about it all the time. Constantly on the mind of law enforcement. Certainly, it's the first thing they look at.
Brian Lehrer: Usually, when there are shootings they are between people who know each other. Sometimes, of course, they are random. Usually, or more often, if it's in a random shooting situation or if it is a random shooting situation, then it might more be considered an act of terrorism. We have no idea in this case, you're telling us. We don't have any reporting yet. It could be that the shooting had to do with people who know each other but it took place on a crowded train in the 8:00 AM rush hour.
Stephen: Right. The victims that I saw, they looked like people who are going to work. They looked like some elderly folks. That's pretty much all I can say at this point. We don't have names. We don't know even whether they survived or whether it was a fatal shooting.
Brian Lehrer: Also joining us now is our usual engineer, our board operator for the show. Listeners, you've heard her name in the credits many times. Juliana Fonda. Juliana was on that train and headed home instead of to work afterwards, I believe. Juliana, can you hear me?
Juliana: Yes, I can hear you, Brian. How are you? I'm not working today. [laughs]
Brian Lehrer: How are you is the question.
Juliana: I'm okay. I'm okay. It was a little terrifying. I was in the front of the train when all of these people started pouring into our car looking behind them, scared and shaking. They started pounding on the driver's window saying, "Drive, drive." He had a red light signal and he didn't understand, and people were yelling out there was fire and shooting. We heard popping behind us and people were pounding on the car trying to get in.
Then the train started driving into the 36th Street station and people poured out. There was smoke all over the platform. There were people lying on the ground and they were rushing us to get onto the other train, the R train that had pulled in, and we got onto that R train. It wasn't moving, and then they wanted everybody to evacuate the N train because there was smoke and there was still popping and shooting. It was on the train that we were on, just going to work.
Brian Lehrer: How many gunshots do you think you heard?
Juliana: Several. A few more than three. There was a pounding of people trying to get out of the car with the smoke. There was people trying to get into the car. Our car seemed relatively safe because there was nobody shooting or anybody on our car, but we were the first car of the train.
Brian Lehrer: How thick was the smoke? Was it an indication to you of something?
Juliana: When you walked onto the platform it was definitely thick. I mean, it was like-- you see it. More than a truck fire. It looked like somebody had lit a fire in one of the cars. There were women and people; we were all just going to work. Everybody got on the R train and they were rushing us on the R train because they didn't know where the shooter was. They couldn't find him, they didn't hear anything, and people were like, "I'm not going to work today. I'm going home." It was very scary.
Brian Lehrer: From what you could tell, was the shooting on a platform or was the shooting on a train?
Juliana: The shooting was on our train. It was on the N train.
Brian Lehrer: It was on your train.
Juliana: I don't know if there was shooting after that. I'm not aware if there was shooting on the platform, but there was definitely shooting on the train that I was on.
Brian Lehrer: Right. Are you describing a scene in which there were two trains on two different tracks at the station, one N train and one R train, and people were trying to move from the N to the R?
Juliana: Correct, because the shooting and the smoke, all the people rushing into our relative safety of our car were between stations; between 59th Street and 36th Street. The N train is an express. When we pulled into 36th Street and R train, which is the local, was across the platform, everybody got off our train scared because-- You couldn't really tell what was happening. You just heard pops and you saw-- When the cars opened on the 36th Street platform, there was so much smoke.
Brian Lehrer: The N train as an express would not normally have stopped at 36th street, but because--
Juliana: No. That is definitely one of its stops.
Brian Lehrer: Oh, that is one-
Juliana: That is an express stop, yes.
Brian Lehrer: -of the stops. That's an express stop. I see. We're seeing this now on the NYPD News' official Twitter account. It says, "In regard to the multiple people shot at the 36th Street subway station in Brooklyn, there are no active explosives at this time." Stephen Nessen, let me go back to you on that. No active explosive devices at this time doesn't mean there never were, but it sounds like they're reporting that the danger, at least from potential explosives, is no longer a thing.
Stephen: That's right. That's what that sounds like. I spoke with some MTA workers right here, some maintenance workers, and I asked if there was any damage to the tracks or the train and they said they didn't think so. They have the radios, they're connected. They're there to check on the condition of the actual train and the train cars and the track. They said they didn't believe that there was any damage to the actual railroad track.
Brian Lehrer: Right. An indication that perhaps there was no explosive device. There was never even an initial report that there was an explosion. There was a report that they were undetonated explosive devices, and yet there was all that smoke. Stephen, as far as this being a station that serves the D, N, and R lines, and you're our transit reporter, what does this mean for people's commutes? What are the stations to avoid and alternatives as of right now, if you're hearing that?
Stephen: It's going to be hard to get to Bay Ridge today, I believe. [chuckles] Certainly 36th Street is out of commission, and 25th street just north of there. As Juliana was saying, people were switching to the train. Some of the victims got on the train and got off at 23rd Street, so that station is also likely closed. I think a bus might be a good option, although Fourth Avenue, as you can imagine, is also closed to traffic. I assume it will be like this for most of the day, if not all of today.
Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if anyone was on the scene and wants to help us report this story, 212-433-WNYC. We're going to talk to the New York City Comptroller, Brad Lander, in just a couple of minutes. Among other things, he used to represent City Council until he got elected comptroller last fall from the neighboring districts. As a Brooklyn person who's very involved in all kinds of civic affairs, we'll talk to Brad Lander about this.
We will also talk to Brad Lander about the indictment this morning of the Lieutenant Governor of New York State, Brian Benjamin, who was one of Lander's rivals for that comptroller position in the New York Democratic primary last June. 212-433-WNYC, if you were on the scene at 36th street this morning and want to help us report this story or just tell us if you're okay. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.
Juliana, this is a lot of people's worst nightmare. You're on a crowded subway train. You hear gunfire, you can't get out of the train, there's smoke, then you are able to get out of the train. What was this like for you going through this?
Juliana: [chuckles] Well, it's confusing at first because you didn't quite know what was going on. Imagine being in the front of a train car and all these people start pouring in. Often what that indicates is someone who might have some problems is causing a disturbance, but people were terrified. They were looking behind them not understanding what was going on. Everybody who was on my car was wondering what is going on, and then you heard the pops and you didn't quite know. People were saying fire. People were saying they were in smoke. There was smoke back there and then just hearing pop, pop, pop. I couldn't understand what the sound was.
I didn't know if it was pounding and that's when I heard people say this was shooting. You're stuck. The train can't move. He has a red light signal. He can't move because there's a train in front of them, and we're sitting there with this happening on a train and you can't go anywhere. When they started pounding on the conductor and he got a green line signal and started pulling into the next station, everybody started running just to get off the train.
Brian Lehrer: Here's a caller, Alan in New Jersey, who says he has experience with the Federal Intelligence Agency. I think he's going to tell us why without an explosive device the perpetrator might have been wearing a gas mask and why there may have been smoke. Alan, thank you for calling in. You're on WNYC.
Alan: Hey, good morning. The reason that the guy probably had the gas mask on, he was probably carrying smoke grenades. They look just like regular grenades, and some of them don't look like grenades. You just pull the pin, they start smoking, like white smoke, generally white smoke, and that'll kill everybody's vision so nobody can see. Then when he starts shooting you can't see where the bullets are coming from. Then he was able to make his escape because everybody is blinded by the white smoke of the smoke grenades. I'll bet any amount of money that he had smoke grenades on him, and that's why he was wearing the gas mask.
Brian Lehrer: That's interesting, Alan. Of course, listeners, to be clear, that's speculation and a theory at this point. From your experience, whatever your experience is in this field, certainly that would indicate a high degree of intentionality, not a dispute between individuals that broke out over a fight or something. What kind of an attack would what you were just describing indicate this might have been?
Alan: Oh, I worked for US Marshals and I worked at the Navy in Washington. This sounds like a planned attack. He perpetrated the attack, he bought the equipment, got the gas mask, he knew he was going to get on the train, he knew he was going to be crowded if it was rush hour, which it was. It definitely sounds like a fully planned attack. I don't know if it was racially motivated or if he's just crazy, or if he just wanted to make a name for himself, but whatever reason, it's just crazy. There's just too many crazies everywhere. It's just unbelievable. That's just my take on the matter just from working with some people that work with a lot of stuff like that.
Brian Lehrer: Alan, thank you for your perspective. I appreciate it a lot. Lori in Brooklyn can see this unfolding from her apartment, I think. Lori, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.
Lori: Oh, hi. Thanks. I was just calling because I was hearing speculation about whether or not there was a fire, and I can see huge clouds of smoke pouring out of the 36th Street station. Something is burning. Something is creating all that smoke. It's not one little device. There's something very big going on. It's very clear out the window, and the sky is all turning very gray and smoke-filled.
Brian Lehrer: You're saying even still right now at 10:18, almost two hours after this took place, there's still smoke pouring out of the 36th Street subway station?
Lori: Yes.
Brian Lehrer: Lori, thank--
Laurie: I can see it out my window. Thank you.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Stay safe. Stephen, you're on the scene there in Sunset Park. Is that what you're seeing as well?
Stephen: Well, certainly, yes, a lot of police standing around, a lot of checking, walking up and down the block, popping into bodegas trying to, like I said, get the surveillance video. I was asking some bodega guy, "You guys got anything?" He's like, "No. We just have a bunch of people standing around." The witness that I spoke with, she has video of victims on the actual train. She asked the police if they want to see it and they said, "Unless you have the perpetrator, we don't need it." [chuckles] There's a lot of fire trucks here, a lot of firefighters, but again, standing around at this point. I think most of the action is going down on the actual subway platform.
Brian Lehrer: You can't tell if there's a perpetrator at large.
Stephen: No. They haven't said that. I'm standing actually right in front of a high school and kids are milling in and out. I think if this was the sort of situation where there's someone at large, I suspect that wouldn't be the case.
Stephen: Especially given [crosstalk]
Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.
Stephen: Sorry. Given the casual way police are standing around, it doesn't seem like they're looking for anyone at the moment. They're not popping into an apartment building and whatnot. That said, we haven't gotten official information so we don't know.
Brian Lehrer: We'll get more on this in a minute from New York City Comptroller, Brad Lander. We'll talk about other things with him too. It was originally supposed to be his first 100 days interview. We will talk about that and his take on Mayor Adams' first 100 days. Also, the indictment this morning, the other shocking breaking news story, of the New York State Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin. For now, we thank WNYC transportation reporter Stephen Nessen, who took our favorite form of transportation, I understand, his bicycle. From where? From the station at Backstreet all the way out to Sunset Park?
Stephen: No. I'm sorry, Brian. I live closer to Downtown Brooklyn.
Brian Lehrer: Okay. Still though. Our intrepid transportation reporter on his bike and our intrepid board engineer usually join the show. Juliana Fonda, who unfortunately was on that train where the shooting occurred and she is now home. Juliana, thank you very much for telling us what you experienced.
Juliana: Thanks a lot, Brian.
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