{"id":20238,"date":"2022-04-14T05:50:31","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T05:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=20238"},"modified":"2026-07-05T17:19:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T17:19:02","slug":"nyc-shooting-police-search-for-motive-of-the-killer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2022\/04\/14\/nyc-shooting-police-search-for-motive-of-the-killer\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Shooting: Police search for motive of the killer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frank James posted dozens of videos ranting about race, violence and his struggles with mental illness. One stands out for its relative calm: A silent shot of a packed New York City subway car in which he raises his finger to point out passengers, one by one.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Even as police arrested James on Wednesday in the Brooklyn subway shooting that wounded 10 people, they were still searching for a motive from a flood of details about the 62–<\/span>year–<\/span>old Black man\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

An erratic work history. Arrests for a string of mostly low–<\/span>level crimes. A storage locker with more ammo. And hours of rambling, bigoted, profanity–<\/span>laced videos on his YouTube channel that point to a deep, simmering anger.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis nation was born in violence, it\u2019s kept alive by violence or the threat thereof, and it\u2019s going to die a violent death,\u201d says James in a video where he takes on the moniker \u201cProphet of Doom.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

After a 30–<\/span>hour manhunt, James was arrested without incident after a tipster \u2014 thought by police to be James himself \u2014 said he could be found near a McDonald\u2019s on Manhattan\u2019s Lower East Side. Mayor Eric Adams triumphantly proclaimed \u201cWe got him!\u201d Police said their top priority was getting the suspect, now charged with a federal terrorism offense, off the streets as they investigate their biggest unanswered question: Why?
\n\"The \"\"<\/p>\n

A prime trove of evidence, they said, is his YouTube videos. He seems to have opinions about nearly everything \u2014 racism in America, New York City\u2019s new mayor, the state of mental health services, 9\/11, Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, and Black women.<\/p>\n

A federal criminal complaint cited one in which James ranted about too many homeless people on the subway and put the blame on New York City\u2019s mayor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you doing, brother?\u201d he said in the video posted March 27. \u201cEvery car I went to was loaded with homeless people. It was so bad, I couldn\u2019t even stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

James then railed about the treatment of Black people in an April 6 video cited in the complaint, saying, \u201cAnd so the message to me is: I should have gotten a gun, and just started shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a video posted a day before the attack, James criticizes crime against Black people and says things would only change if certain people were \u201cstomped, kicked and tortured\u201d out of their \u201ccomfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surveillance cameras spotted James entering the subway system turnstiles Tuesday morning, dressed as a maintenance or construction worker in a yellow hard hat and orange working jacket with reflective tape.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Police say fellow riders heard him say only \u201coops\u201d as he set off one smoke grenade in a crowded subway car as it rolled into a station. He then set off a second smoke grenade and started firing, police said. In the smoke and chaos that ensued, police say James made his getaway by slipping into a R–<\/span>train going the opposite direction and exited after the first stop.<\/p>\n

Left behind at the scene was the gun, extended magazines, a hatchet, detonated and undetonated smoke grenades, a black garbage can, a rolling cart, gasoline and the key to a U–<\/span>Haul van, police said.<\/p>\n

That key led investigators to James, and clues to a life of setbacks and anger as he bounced among factory and maintenance jobs, got fired at least twice, moved among Milwaukee, Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York.<\/p>\n

Investigators said James had 12 prior arrests in New York and New Jersey from 1990 to 2007, including for possession of burglary tools, criminal sex act, trespassing, larceny and disorderly conduct.<\/p>\n

James had no felony convictions and was not prohibited from purchasing or owning a firearm. Police said the gun used in the attack was legally purchased at an Ohio pawn shop in 2011. A search of James\u2019<\/span> Philadelphia storage unit and apartment turned up at least two types of ammunition, including the kind used with an AR–<\/span>15 assault–<\/span>style rifle, a taser and a blue smoke cannister.<\/p>\n

Police said James was born and raised in New York City. In his videos, he said he finished a machine shop course in 1983 then worked as a gear machinist at Curtiss–<\/span>Wright, an aerospace manufacturer in New Jersey, until 1991 when he was he was hit by a one–<\/span>two punch of bad news: He was fired from his job and, soon after, his father whom he had lived with in New Jersey died.<\/p>\n

Records show James filed a complaint against the aerospace company in federal court soon after he lost his job alleging racial discrimination, but it was dismissed a year later by a judge. He says in one video, without offering specifics, that he \u201ccouldn\u2019t get any justice for what I went through.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Curtiss–<\/span>Wright didn\u2019t immediately respond to a call seeking comment.<\/p>\n

James describes going in and out of several mental health facilities, including two in the Bronx borough of New York City in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Mayor, let me say to you I\u2019m a victim of your mental health program in New York City,\u201d James says in a video earlier this year, adding he is \u201cfull of hate, full anger and bitterness.\u201d<\/p>\n

James says he later was a patient at Bridgeway House, a mental health facility in New Jersey, although that could not be immediately confirmed. Messages left with the facility were not returned.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal at Bridgeway in 1997 was to get off Social Security and go back to f–<\/span>–<\/span>–<\/span>–<\/span>–<\/span>–<\/span> work,\u201d he says in a video, adding that he enrolled in a college and took a course in computer–<\/span>aided design and manufacturing.<\/p>\n

James says he eventually got a job at telecommunications giant Lucent Technologies in Parsippany, New Jersey, but says he ended up getting fired and returned to Bridgeway House, this time not as a patient but as an employee on the maintenance staff. A message seeking comment was sent to Lucent Technologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to work. I want to be a person that\u2019s productive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Touches of that earnest, struggling man showed up after James\u2019 parked car was hit in Milwaukee. Eugene Yarbrough, pastor of Mt. Zion Wings of Glory Church of God in Christ next door to James\u2019 apartment, said James was impressed that the pastor owned up to hitting the car. Neither James nor anyone else was there to see the accident. And James called him up to say so.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just couldn\u2019t believe it would be him,\u201d Yarbrough said. \u201cBut who knows what people will do?\u201d
\nsource:AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frank James posted dozens of videos ranting about race, violence and his struggles with mental illness. One stands out for its relative calm: A silent shot of a packed New York City subway car in which he raises his finger to point out passengers, one by one. Even as police arrested James on Wednesday in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":20242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5144,9747,183,5304,6573,5878,13175,6369,9784,6537,9331,11381,10507,7234,10505,5241,9520,11564,6655,11276,11365,11283,5787,5962,5912,12239,7375,1445,7165,9807,12634,3259,5252,7407,12005,10419,10634,11237,5331,11602,6554,5913,6935,2323,990,1670,7229,9534,11973,237,6054,5844,421,5646,6200,504,3457,5655,7584,11259,11179,8233,10841,9151,9616,8206,5180,8033,3954,5320,10415,594,9550,3124],"class_list":["post-20238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-accident","tag-ammunition","tag-assault","tag-attack","tag-black","tag-brooklyn","tag-car","tag-chaos","tag-charged","tag-church","tag-city","tag-complaint","tag-court","tag-death","tag-die","tag-died","tag-discrimination","tag-eric-adams","tag-erratic","tag-eugene","tag-factory","tag-felony","tag-flood","tag-frank-james","tag-frank-r-james","tag-garbage","tag-gasoline","tag-god","tag-grenades","tag-gun","tag-health","tag-homeless","tag-invasion","tag-jobs","tag-judge","tag-justice","tag-lost","tag-manhattan","tag-mayor","tag-mcdonald","tag-mcdonalds","tag-mental-health","tag-milwaukee","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-ohio","tag-one","tag-pastor","tag-pawn-shop","tag-philadelphia","tag-police","tag-priority","tag-race","tag-racism","tag-russia","tag-security","tag-sex","tag-shot","tag-smoke","tag-social-security","tag-surveillance","tag-terrorism","tag-train","tag-treatment","tag-ukraine","tag-video","tag-will","tag-women","tag-work","tag-who","tag-youtube","tag-zion"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50920,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20238\/revisions\/50920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}