Brooklyn capturing: Man sought by police left a path of troubling movies on-line

Written by Jonah E. Bromwich, Rebecca Davis O’Brien and Chelsia Rose Marcius

The man whom the police have recognized as an individual of curiosity within the subway assault in Brooklyn seems to have posted dozens of movies on social media lately — prolonged rants wherein he expressed a spread of harshly bigoted views and, extra just lately, criticised the insurance policies of New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams.

The man, Frank R James, 62, has addresses in Wisconsin and Philadelphia, the police mentioned. He is the topic of a search effort as investigators search to find out any connection he might have needed to the capturing at a Brooklyn subway station on Tuesday morning.

He was not named as a suspect, and the police determine somebody as an individual of curiosity once they consider the person might have data associated to against the law. But New York’s police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, mentioned that residents ought to name with any data that they had on James.

Two regulation enforcement officers mentioned {that a} bank card with James’ identify on it had been discovered on the scene of the capturing, as had a key to a van that James had rented. It appeared that James had rented the van in Philadelphia someday over the past a number of days, pushed it near the subway line the place the assault occurred and deserted it there, one official mentioned. The van was discovered by the police late Tuesday afternoon.

Separately, the authorities provided as much as $50,000 in reward cash for data resulting in the arrest and indictment of a suspect within the assault.

The police launched a screenshot of James taken from a YouTube video posted by a channel belonging to the username prophetoftruth88.

A photograph of the van that police say is linked with the capturing at a subway station as regulation enforcement officers conduct an investigation within the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York, US, April 12, 2022. (Reuters)

The movies featured a person — who seemed to be the identical man in an image launched by the police — delivering prolonged tirades, a lot of them overtly involved with race and violence, typically tying these topics in with present occasions, together with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the insurance policies of Adams. Two regulation enforcement officers mentioned that James was the particular person featured within the channel’s movies.

In a video posted to YouTube on March 1, the particular person featured within the video criticised Mayor Eric Adams by identify for just lately introduced insurance policies addressing public security within the subways, which targeted on homeless folks. The man within the video was notably mocking towards the thought of social providers, as he spoke in entrance of an array of images which he mentioned belonged to individuals who had tried to assist him.

In an extended, ceaselessly digressive and bigoted rant, the person within the video elaborated on the benefit of committing crime within the subway, saying that even with quite a few law enforcement officials deployed to the subway, “I’d still get off.”

“He can’t stop no crime in no subways,” the person mentioned, utilizing a number of expletives. “He may slow it down but he ain’t stopping it.”

“That means you’d have to have police in every station and that’s just not possible,” he added.

Sewell mentioned on the information convention Tuesday that Adams’ safety element can be elevated in mild of the movies.

Another video on the channel, posted in 2020, appeared to have been taken in New York’s subways. In that video, the particular person holding the digital camera merely trains it on a crowded subway automotive.

Officials mentioned that consumer-grade fireworks, gasoline and two unused smoke grenades had been recovered from the scene of the capturing, and {a photograph} circulated on social media Tuesday appeared to indicate the fireworks, together with different materials.

William Weimer, a vice chairman at Phantom Fireworks, mentioned {that a} man named Frank James from Milwaukee had bought a number of manufacturers of the fireworks seen within the photograph from the Phantom Fireworks’ showroom exterior Racine, Wisconsin, in June 2021.