Suspect in Brooklyn subway train shooting called in the tip that led to his arrest, sources say

Watch the NYPD news conference in the player above.

By Brynn Gingras, Shimon Prokupecz, Pervaiz Shallwani, Artemis Moshtaghian, Laura Ly, Kristina Sgueglia and Eric Levenson, CNN

(CNN) -- The man suspected of shooting 10 people on a subway train in Brooklyn on Tuesday called in a tip to Crime Stoppers that led to his capture Wednesday, two law enforcement sources told CNN.

Frank James, 62, was arrested without incident by patrol officers in Manhattan's East Village neighborhood on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

James called in the tip and told authorities he was at a McDonald's on the lower east side of Manhattan, the sources confirmed.

The tip indicated the suspect was at a McDonald's restaurant on 6th Street and 1st Avenue, a police official said at a news conference earlier Wednesday. Officers did not find him there, but spotted him just around the corner, according to the official.

LIVE UPDATES: Brooklyn subway station shooting

James is suspected of setting off smoke grenades and firing a handgun 33 times on a crowded N train traveling toward the 36th Street station in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood. The attack left 29 people injured, including 10 who were shot, though none of the injuries appear to be life-threatening, officials said. Five of the victims were young people commuting to school, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

The motive of the shooting is not yet known.

James has been charged by complaint in Brooklyn federal court with violating a law that prohibits terrorist and other violent attacks against a mass transportation system, according to Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

If convicted, he could spend life in prison, Peace said.

James will have his initial court appearance Thursday in Brooklyn federal court, according to a spokesperson for the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.

James is being represented by federal defender Mia Eisner-Grynberg, according to his criminal docket. CNN has reached out to her for comment.

James has nine prior arrests in New York dating from 1992 to 1998, including possession of burglary tools, criminal sex act, and theft of service, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said. He also had three arrests in New Jersey in 1991, 1992 and 2007 for trespassing, larceny and disorderly conduct, Essig said.

The arrest came hours after officials elevated James from a "person of interest" to a suspect in the shooting and less than a day after authorities launched a manhunt for his whereabouts. Earlier Wednesday, the city issued an emergency alert to residents saying James is "wanted" and asking the public for tips.

The subway shooting represents a long-feared nightmare scenario for New York City, which relies heavily on its mass transit system. Subway ridership cratered during the Covid pandemic as many workers stayed home, and ridership has not returned to its pre-pandemic levels, in part due to wariness over an increase in violence on the transit system.

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How investigators homed in on James

In a news conference Wednesday, officials laid out some of James' actions prior to the attack and the evidence connecting him to the scene.

James got on the subway's N train at the Kings Highway Station on Tuesday at about 8:30 a.m., Essig said. After opening fire on the train, he got off at the 36th Street station, boarded an R train across the platform and rode to the 25th Street station stop, Essig said.

Less than an hour later, he was spotted boarding the subway at 7th Avenue and 9th Street station, about 1.5 miles away, Essig said.

Investigators combing through the shooting scene found a Glock 9 mm handgun, three extended magazines, two detonated smoke grenades, two non-detonated smoke grenades, a hatchet and keys to a U-Haul van, Essig said. Witnesses also described the suspect as a heavyset Black man wearing a neon construction jacket.

The gun found at the scene was purchased by James in Ohio in 2011, Essig said Wednesday. A credit card that was used to rent the U-Haul was also found, two law enforcement sources told CNN. Two officials told CNN they believe the gun jammed during the shooting.

The U-Haul van was rented by James, police said. The van was recovered near the Kings Highway Station, and surveillance video shows James leaving it on Tuesday morning, according to a criminal complaint. The neon construction jacket, which had been discarded on the subway platform, had a receipt for a storage unit in Philadelphia registered to James, the complaint states.

Federal prosecutors believe he visited the storage facility filled with ammunition and more weapons on the evening before the Tuesday attack, according to court documents.

On Tuesday, authorities executed a court-authorized warrant to search the storage facility and found "9mm ammunition, a threaded 9mm pistol barrel that allows for a silencer or suppresser to be attached, targets and .223 caliber ammunition, which is used with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle," among other things.

According to the complaint, law enforcement executed a search warrant at a Philadelphia apartment authorities believe James rented for 15 days beginning around March 28 and found "an empty magazine for a Glock handgun, a taser, a high-capacity rifle magazine and a blue smoke cannister."

Investigators did not find any other weapons or explosives in the van, two law enforcement officials said. The officials said it appeared James may have slept in the vehicle. They said a license plate reader detected the van driving over the Verrazzano Bridge from Staten Island into Brooklyn around 4 a.m. Tuesday.

Authorities also tracked the purchase of a gas mask to James through an eBay account, two officials said.

His family did not respond to CNN's request for comment.

How the shooting unfolded

People aboard the train car on Tuesday morning said smoke filled the car and gunshots rang out, causing people to push their way to the other side of the train in panic and confusion.

Hourari Benkada, 27, who was shot in the back of the knee, said he thinks he was sitting next to the shooter.

Speaking from a hospital bed Tuesday, Benkada said he'd gotten into the last car of the N train and sat next to a man with a duffel bag who appeared to be wearing an MTA vest. The man let off a "smoke bomb," said Benkada, a housekeeping manager at the New Yorker Hotel.

"And all you see (is) smoke -- black smoke ... going off, and then people bum-rushing to the back," Benkada said. "This pregnant woman was in front of me. I was trying to help her. I didn't know there were shots at first. I just thought it was a black smoke bomb.

"She said, 'I'm pregnant with a baby.' I hugged her. And then the bum-rush continued. I got pushed, and that's when I got shot in the back of my knee."

The shooting started about 20 seconds after the train took off from the 59th Street station and felt like it lasted for nearly 2 minutes, Benkada said. Benkada heard other people in pain, but couldn't see them or the suspect because of the smoke, he said.

Claire Tunkel, 46, who was in the subway car where the shooting took place, described the scene as chaotic. She said she couldn't see anything because of the smoke, but she heard people crying out for help and others saying they were bleeding.

"You couldn't see anything, but you could feel it," she said. People were rushing to the front of the car, and some fell to the ground, she said. "You could feel the bodies."

She took off her jacket and tied it around the leg of a man who suffered a gunshot wound, she told CNN. Tunkel, who later went to the hospital for smoke inhalation, said several victims were lying on the floor of the subway platform after the train arrived at the station.

Suspect talked about mass shootings in videos

James has been linked to multiple rambling videos posted on a YouTube channel. A screenshot from one of the videos was used on an NYPD Crimestoppers flyer seeking information about the shooting.

He documented his travel from Wisconsin to the Northeast over a series of videos in recent weeks.

James talked about violence and mass shootings in the videos, including one uploaded Monday in which he said he's thought about killing people who have presumably hurt him.

"I've been through a lot of s**t, where I can say I wanted to kill people. I wanted to watch people die right in front of my f**king face immediately. But I thought about the fact that, hey man, I don't want to go to no f**king prison," he said.

In another video posted last week, James rants about abuse in churches and racism in the workplace, using misogynistic and racist language. Many of the videos that James uploaded included references to violence, including at a set group of people he believed had maligned him, in addition to broad societal and racial groups that he appeared to hate.

In another video posted last month to the same channel, James said that he had post-traumatic stress. In that video, James said he left his home in Milwaukee on March 20. During the trip eastward, he said he was heading to the "danger zone."

"You know, it's triggering a lot of negative thoughts of course," he said in the video. "I do have a severe case of post-traumatic stress."

In a video posted in February, he also criticized a plan by the Adams administration to address safety and homelessness in the subway in part through an expanded presence of mental health professionals. In a racist and rambling recording, James called the new effort "doomed to fail" and described his own negative experience with city health workers during a "crisis of mental health back in the '90s, '80s and '70s."

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