There were terrifying moments inside a moving subway train in Brooklyn after a gunman opened fire, shooting two people before taking off, according to police.
The gunfire erupted on a C train near the Ralph Avenue station in Bedford-Stuyvesant around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to police. A 17-year-old was shot in the hand and a 52-year-old was struck in the leg after a fight between another group, police said.
Both victims are expected to recover. It was not immediately clear if either or both individuals were bystanders struck by a stray bullet. NYPD Transit Chief Michael Kemper said the suspected gunman was involved in some sort of gang dispute, and that the bullet that struck the teen's hand was the same one that hit the older victim in the leg.
Police sources with knowledge of the investigation told NBC New York that the teen is a known gang member with nearly a dozen prior arrests. The older victim has no known affiliation with gangs.
The shooter ran off from the station before police arrived. Despite a decrease in subway crime, Passengers United, said that the current state of the subway is still far from ideal.
"We’re been pleading at Passengers United with the MTA, city and state officials. Down-playing crisis in subway system," said Jack Nierenberg, the vice president of riders group Passengers United. "Two people didn’t die but people could have died...if this shooting today did not scream a safety crisis I don’t know what did."
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MTA Transit President Richard Davey said that they have high-quality video from the station where the suspect ran from. Investigators are also looking into whether the train itself had functioning surveillance cameras.
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The incident came amid a spike in felony assaults, which were up 28% for the week, 23% for the month of November, and up 5% for the year. Overall subway crime was also up more than 8% for the week and nearly 16% for the month. But for 2023, subway crime is actually down 2.4% overall.
