Subway shooter Frank James was a desperate outlaw on the run, for a full 30 hours. After opening fire inside one of Brooklyn, New York’s N train cars he disappeared like a ghost. The terror attack happened during the morning rush hour commute on Tuesday and underscores major security flaws. Serious problems start at the local level but run all the way on up to federal. FBI agents have some serious explaining to do.
Subway shooter arrested
Police were happy to announce on Wednesday that 62-year-old Frank R. James is in custody, even though they didn’t have much to do with it. The New York City Police Department “was working with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to track down the man” but they didn’t have a clue. Mostly, due to the fact that the subway company’s cameras weren’t working.
Just like the good old days of vigilante justice, they put a $50,000 price on the head of Frank James and someone called to report spotting him at McDonald’s. Police still couldn’t find him. “Someone called in a tip saying he was at a McDonald’s in the East Village, the authorities said. Officers did not seem him there but patrolled the neighborhood and located him on the street about two blocks away, near St. Marks Place.”
On Tuesday, April 12, James was dressed as a construction worker when he donned a gas mask and tossed two smoke grenades on the floor. As panic stricken passengers found themselves trapped by locked doors on the subway car, James pulled out his Glock 9 and started pulling the trigger. When the weapon jammed, he dropped it on the floor.
Police later recovered a gun, gas mask, smoke bombs and a hatchet from the scene. There was also a bag “filled with Falcon Rising fireworks and Seismic Wave Crackers.” Along with that, “officers recovered a credit card with Mr. James’ name on it and a key to a U-Haul van.” They still couldn’t track him from the scene.
Most recently a resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, James closed out his apartment there and and headed to New York with a stop in Philadelphia. He packed up and headed south on March 20, proceeding “through Illinois, then to Philadelphia where he picked up a U-Haul van he brought to New York City.”
The FBI didn’t have any idea he was going to shoot up a subway, despite the way he told the whole world about it on YouTube, without being censored. The FBI should have been monitoring his accounts considering they had him on their radar as a domestic terrorist.
Under the FBI radar
The FBI can’t be blamed for the camera malfunctions which police claim prevented them from getting a single image of the subway shooter from any of the three entrance cameras he walked past. The bureau can be blamed for a lot though. They face “major questions” about why they decided to clear Frank James in 2019 after “multiple interviews.”
His name was officially entered into the “Guardian Lead terrorism monitoring system in New Mexico” and he has a history of making “terrorist threats.” The bureau didn’t take him seriously. His threats “were said to be emotionally disturbed rather than of any value.”
It’s been revealed by various news outlets that James had a significant criminal history “including nine prior arrests in New York, mostly for misdemeanors and three arrests in New Jersey.” The handgun he used in the subway attack “matched a serial number in federal records.”
The FBI apparently turned him loose in 2019 and forgot all about him. They really should have been reading his Facebook. That’s where he “posted worrying memes about guns, bullets and 9/11.” Then again, YouTube should have been monitoring his video posts, too.
Google owned YouTube will yank a teenager’s video if it has a snip of copyrighted music in the background but they let prophetoftruth88 post detailed threat information without question. Probably, because he’s a person of color and only White people are censored for their views. They say they have “strict rules on uploading harmful or dangerous content” but didn’t mind what Frank James had to say.
Not even when he said things “ranting about race and how he would ‘never be back again alive‘ just three weeks ago.” He was allowed to rant about “how oppressed black people were and how black and white people should have ‘no contact.’” As he drove out of Wisconsin, he babbled at his camera, “all I can say is: Good riddance. I will never be back again alive to that m*********r.” Instead he took a ride on the subway.
