"My fellow New Yorkers, we got him. We got him," Adams said at a Wednesday press conference.
Three New York Police Department (NYPD) officials told CNN that 61-year-old Frank James had been arrested by patrol cops in Manhattan's East Village neighborhood. According to WABC, James was arrested following tips by people nearby, who described him as aimlessly wandering in the area.
James has been charged with a federal terror offense under two sections of 18 US Code § 1992, which concerns "terrorist attacks and other violence against railroad carriers and against mass transportation systems on land, on water, or through the air." However, on Tuesday, NYPD commissioner Keechant Sewel said that the force was not investigating the shooting as a terrorist attack. He faces up to life in prison if convicted, a US attorney said at the press conference.
Early on Wednesday morning, the NYPD tweeted images of James, saying he was a person of interest in the shooting, with Adams later stating James had become a suspect. NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig told reporters that the keys to a U-Haul van James had rented in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had been found in the subway station after the attack and that the van had been found five miles from the crime scene.
The shooting happened inside an N line subway train on Tuesday morning as the train pulled into the 36th & 4th Avenue subway station in the eastern New York City borough of Brooklyn.
The suspect set off smoke grenades and fired 33 shots inside the crowded subway car, shooting 10 people and leaving a total of 29 injured. Graphic images recorded immediately after the attack showed panicked passengers pouring out of the subway along with smoke, and blood smeared and pooling on surfaces. None of the victims has died so far.