NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- The MTA is blaming an internet glitch for the problem with its cameras at two subway stations during Tuesday morning's mass shooting in Brooklyn, while the NYPD said claims the issue "delayed the manhunt by many hours are unfair and misleading."
Maintenance workers inspected the camera at the 36th Street station on Sunday, two days before the shooting, and traced the problem to a fiberoptic cable connection failure that had also interrupted feeds from cameras.
At the time of the attack, cameras at the 36th Street and 25th Street stations on the Fourth Avenue line were not transmitting images back to the MTA, agency Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said Thursday.
“The cameras themselves were working, it was the internet connection that apparently had failed. Without getting too technical, there’s a node that carries that internet connection for those stations that had failed,” Lieber said. “We’ve all learned about internet connections in the Zoom and Webex and Microsoft Teams era, and that’s exactly what apparently failed.”
The cameras were back online Wednesday after a problem was fixed in a server room, but the failures complicated the search for the alleged shooter, Frank R. James, and deprived investigators of important information from the scene.
Even if the internet had been working, the cameras would not have transmitted images of the train car; an MTA spokesperson told amNewYork they were pointed at the turnstiles, not at the platform. The suspect is believed to have entered the subway system at the Kings Highway station and fled the 36th Street station by train.
The failures led City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and other lawmakers to sign a letter demanding an audit of the MTA’s camera system, saying in a letter to the transit agency that “New Yorkers need to know what the MTA is doing to close these coverage gaps and maintain safe conditions in the subway.”
There are 5,100 live feeds from MTA cameras across the subway system and an additional 5,000 cameras that record locally as part of the NYPD’s Domain Awareness System.
John Miller, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, released a statement Thursday evening defending the MTA and saying its cameras in other parts of the system “were essential elements in determining” the suspect’s movements and that reports saying a “lack of cameras on the station delayed the manhunt by many hours are unfair and misleading.”
Miller said the cameras “are used on average dozens of times on a daily basis to identify specific incidents, crimes and to identify perpetrators.”
“We communicate with the MTA about outages when they occur. If we discover an issue with a feed, we report it to them to make sure they are aware,” he said.
“At the time of the attack on Tuesday in Brooklyn, the cameras were out at three stations due to a technical issue,” Miller continued. “Statements that the lack of cameras on the station delayed the manhunt by many hours are unfair and misleading. We had witness descriptions of the suspect and the distinctive, bright colored clothing he wore during the attack. As for his face, during the attack and the escape he wore a large black mask obscuring most of his face.”
Miller said a key to a U-Haul truck the suspect allegedly rented, as well as a piece of identification, were recovered at the subway station and led to authorities recovering video of the suspect from a Pennsylvania rental location, as well as a name and driver’s license photo from motor vehicle records.
“The MTA cameras in other parts of the system were essential elements in determining his movements before and after the shootings,” Miller said. “Their personnel worked with us around the clock to identify and retrieve images in this case. While it has become routine to cast blame in many directions after an incident we should remember that the gunman is the sole party responsible for this attack.”
James, 62, was jailed without bail Thursday as prosecutors told a judge he terrified the entire city.
“The defendant terrifyingly opened fire on passengers on a crowded subway train, interrupting their morning commute in a way the city hasn’t seen in more than 20 years,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara K. Winik said, apparently referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“The defendant’s attack was premeditated, was carefully planned and it caused terror among the victims and our entire city,” she said.
James was arrested in the East Village on Wednesday afternoon after calling an NYPD tip line to say where he was, a day after the shooting in Sunset Park left 10 people with gunshot wounds and 19 more with other injuries, according to police.
James is charged with a federal terrorism offense that applies to attacks on mass transit systems — authorities said there's currently no evidence linking him to terror organizations and are still trying to derive a motive.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related
Related
Related
