NEW YORK (WCBS 880/1010 WINS) — Witnesses described a chaotic and harrowing scene after a man in a gas mask detonated a smoke bomb and then opened fire on commuters aboard a Brooklyn, New York subway train during Tuesday's morning rush-hour.
Officials said at least 10 people suffered gunshot wounds and a total of at least 21 people were injured in the attack that occurred as a Manhattan-bound N train pulled into the 36th Street station in Sunset Park just before 8:30 a.m. Five people were listed in critical, but stable condition.
Witness Sam Carcamo told 1010 WINS that he was on his way to work when the R train he was riding in pulled into the station. He then saw a gigantic billow of smoke pour out of the N train once the door opened.
"My subway door opened into calamity and then it was people running to get away from whatever was happening and then it was just smoke and blood and people screaming," Carcamo said. "I was seeing people flee with fear that I don't think I've ever seen in my life. People were falling to the floor and pulling themselves away. Nobody knew what was going on."
Carcamo said he saw peolpe tending to a man laying in a pool of blood on the platform as MTA workers piled terrified commuters onto the train to help them get away.
"There were people covered in other people's blood. One of the girls I was talking to was wearing a white sweater and she told me that she's going to go home and burn it," he said. "Then we got to the 25th Street station, there was a man who started screaming out and I don't think he had realized he had been shot up until that point."
Quan McClinton, a private sanitation worker whose regular route is along Fourth Avenue, said he was aboveground when he saw people fleeing the subway system.
"It's total chaos," McClinton told WCBS 880. "I work this route everyday and I stood over here by the storage place to get my equipment together and there's people running everywhere in either direction so I just stood back. This is crazy, absolutely crazy."
McClinton said the emergency response involved dozens of police vehicles, ambulances, fire trucks and even helicopters.
"I never seen that in my life. So many ambulances ... So I'm just praying for the people's families," he said. "You got the helicopters and everything so I knew it was something serious. I've never seen nothing like this happen. Never ever."
Yaha Ibrahim was standing near the 25th Street station, where many victims ran up the stairs to get help.
"I saw a lot of people coming out of the train station and people were screaming, yelling for help, 'Call the cops,'" he said. "There was a lady, she was injured, she got shot in the leg, blood was all over."
Yehia Sulaiman, who owns a nearby deli, was at work when he heard the commotion.
"I saw a swarm of people just running from the train station," he said. "I happened to come out and I grabbed a person and I said, 'What happened?' And he goes, 'There were people shot on 36th Street.' People that were shot they didn't even know they were shot ... How are people supposed to feel safe? How are people going to go on the train again? It's scary for everybody."
Danny Mastrogiorgio of Brooklyn had just dropped his 3-year-old son off at pre-school school when chaos ensued.
"And then around 8:30 they start rushing all the kids in the building. They didn't say anything, I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was just because it was starting to rain. They heard immediately that there was an active shooter and got all the kids inside and put them in the building," he told WCBS 880.
Mastrogiorgio told the Associated Press that he saw wounded subway passengers fleeing the 25th Street station in panic.
“It was insane,” he said. “No one knew exactly what was going on.”
Schools in an around Sunset Park sheltered in place as police searched for the suspect.
The suspect, who was wearing a construction vest and a gas mask at the time of the attack, remains at large and has not been identified. Authorities said the incident is not currently being investigated as an act of terrorism.
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