At about 8:24 a.m., a train pulled into the 36th Street Station in the Sunset Park neighborhood, a man in a construction vest put on his gas mask before firing shots that hit people on the train and the nearby platform, said Police Commissioner Keechant L. Sewell.
At least 16 people were injured, 10 of them by gunfire, in the subway in Brooklyn during the Tuesday morning rush, officials said, after a man released a canister of smoke and opened fire on an N train.
The Fire Department said that five people were in critical condition, but none of them had suffered life-threatening injuries. The violent episode came amid a heightened fear of crime as New York City struggles to recover from the pandemic.
Commissioner Sewell said that the police were seeking a man with a heavy build who had been wearing a green construction vest and gray sweatshirt.
Videos posted on social media showed panicked riders pouring from a train and onto the platform as smoke billowed through the station. Commissioner Sewell said that no active explosive devices had been found at the scene or on subway trains.
“This is not being investigated as an act of terrorism at this time,” she said, adding that officers had not identified a motive.
President Biden had been briefed on the shooting, officials said. Mayor Eric Adams, who tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday and is currently isolating, was also monitoring the situation.
Eight people with injuries from the shooting were being treated at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, said a spokeswoman for the hospital system, Lisa Greiner. Their injuries included gunshot wounds and smoke inhalation; all eight were in stable condition.
Suzanne Tammaro, a spokeswoman for Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, said that five people were being treated there, two of them with gunshot wounds. NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital said it was treating three patients injured in the shooting.
Several schools near the scene of the shooting were told to “shelter in place,” or close their doors and prevent outside visitors, according to a spokesman for the Education Department.